Development of 

Old English Thought 



THE DEVELOPMEllfIT 



OP 



OLD ENGLISH THOUGHT 




BROTHER AZARIAS 

OF THB BBOTHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS 

Semper aut discere, aut doccre, aut scribere dulce hdhui. Beda 



}0 ^ 



U 



THIRD EDITION 




NEW YORK 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1890 






Copyright, 1879, 1889. 
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 




PREFACE. 



The present volume traces the growtli and devel- 
opment of Old English Thought as expressed in Old 
English Literature, from the first dawnings of history- 
down to the Norman Conquest. It goes back of the 
written word to the life, the aspirations, and the 
motives that gave it expression. It seeks in the 
manners and customs, the religion and law and 
government and international relations of the Old 
English people, the sources whence the hterature of 
that people derives its tone and coloring. For this 
purpose, the author has laid every available source 
of information under contribution. Dry land-grants, 
antiquated law-codes, the decrees of councils, the 
lives of saints, legend and history, the researches 
of scholar and critic and antiquarian, have all of 
them directly or indirectly been brought to bear 
upon the subject, and have been made use of to 
throw light upon the purely literary document. 



iv PREFACE. 

Intending the work for a class-book, the author 
has restricted himself to presenting the merest out- 
line of his subject. He leaves it to the teacher to 
HU in whatever details are lacking. 

In sending forth this Second Edition, the author 
would add one remark. Much of our Old En^hsh 

o 

Literature has come down to us anonymously. The 
authorship is a matter of conjecture. Poems at- 
tributed to Cedmon may have been written by Cyne- 
wulf ; poems attributed to Cynewulf may have been 
written by Aldhelm, and so on. Critics are divided. 
But this is of secondary importance in a work deal- 
ing rather with the history of thought than with 
that of books and authors. At this distance, the 
name without the personality is of slight moment ; 
the main question is, How much of a people's 
thoughts and aspirations does the document reveal? 
For this reason we have concluded to call the pres- 
ent edition a history of thought. 

New York, Octoler SO, 1889. 



CONTEiTTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction ....... 1 

CHAPTER L 

The Continental Homestead . . . . 5 ^ 

I. English and Aryan . . . . .5 

II. Soil, Climate, and Character . . . . 8 

III. Laws aud Customs . . . . .12 

IV. Condition of Woman . . . . 23 
V. The Mead-Hall . . . . . . 30v 

VI. Language and Poetry . ■ . . . 33 

VIL Philosophy . . . . ." 47 

CHAPTER II. 

Keltic Influence ...... 57 

L Kelt and Teuton . . . . .57 

II. Kymrio Kelt . . . . . 61 

in. Gaedhil and Kymry . . . . .68 

IV. Keltic Sentiment . . ... . 72 

CHAPTER in. 

The Old Creed and the New . . . . .77 

" I. The English in their Insular Homestead . . 77 ^ 

II. Gregory the Great . , . . .79 

III. Augustin and Paulinus .... 84 

IV. Relapse and Recovery . . . . .88 
v. Shadow and Substance . . . . 91 



vi CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV. 

PAGE 

Whitby ........ 97 

I. St. Hilda ...... 97 

II. The Story of Cedmon's Life Unraveled . . 100 

III. The Themes Cedmon Sang . . .106 

IV. The Secret of Cedmon's Success . . .110 
V. Cedmon at Work . . . ... 114 

VI. Cedmon's Influence at Home and Abroad . . 123 

CHAPTER V. 

Canterbury . . . . . . .131 

I. Theodore and Aldhelm ..... 131 

II. The Poem of Andreas . . . .136 

III. Cynewulf . . . . . .146 

IV. The Poems of Judith, Guthlac, and a Lover's Message 147 

CHAPTER VL 

Jarrow and York . . . . . • 152 

I. Benedict Biscop . . . . .152 

n. Beda . . . . . . . 153 

IIL Ale win . . . . . .160 

IV. Popular Philosophy . . . . .163 

V. The Reflective Mood in Poetry . . . 170 

CHAPTER VII. 

Winchester . . . . . . .175 

L Alfred the Great . . . . .175 

II. Spirit of Laws . . . . .180 

IIL The Sentiment of Nationality . . . 186 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Abingdon . . . . . . .193 

L The Two Alfrics . . . . .194 

/ II. Tenth Century Poetry . . . .200 

Conclusion ....... 206 



THE DEYELOPMEKT 

OF 

OLD EIJGLISH THOUGHT. 



mTRODUCTION. 

1. A people's literature is a criterion of a people's 
civilization. It embodies what is most enduring in 
thought, and records what is best worth remembering 
in deeds. A people may be conquered ; it may lose its 
individuality ; it may change its religion, its govern- 
ment, its soil ; but so long as its literature remains, its 
growth and development, its rise and fall, its character 
and genius continue objects of interest and teach a les- 
son to all who wish to be instructed. 

2. But literature is not all a people's thought. It is 
only that which a people regards as its best and most 
cherished thought. Thought has various forms of ex~ 
pression. It is embodied in a people's laws and manner 
of life, in its arts and architecture, in its philosophy and 
religion, in its politics, its science, and its industry. 
The idioms of its language speak of the richness or the 
poverty of its thought. Literature, then, is one among 
many forms of thought. That which one man writes 
out, another lives out. The idea expressed in a poem 
may be constructed in marble, or put upon canvas. 
Each form of expression throws light on the other. 



^i 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

3. Literature is the outcome of the whole life of a 
people. It is the creature of its day. To understand 
it aright, it must be studied in connection with the 
sources and influences that shape it. To consider it 
apart from these were to misapprehend its nature and 
its bearing. It were to lose sight of the real character 
of thought. Thought is as subtle as the spirit that 
gives it existence. It pervades every action of life. It 
is the indispensable accompaniment of all that man 
wills and does. It suggests his plans ; it gives direc- 
tion to his deeds ; it regulates his industries ; it molds 
his religion ; it underlies his mythologies and super- 
stitions ; it explains his views ; it sings of his heroic 
feats ; it gives wings to his noblest aspirations. Man 
is so called because of his thinking power.^ 

4. Thought is modified by circumstances. It gets 
its shape from the place and time in which it is ex- 
pressed ; it receives its coloring from the person by 
whom it is spoken. 'No thought stands alone. It forms 
an inseparable link between those that have gone before 
and those that come after. A sentence expressing a 
living thought, spoken or written at a given time and 
in a given place, would at no other time and in no other 
place receive the exact form it receives then and there. 
Nor could other than the person speaking or writing it 
give it the same tone as that it takes. 

5. As with a single sentence, so is it with a whole 
literature. Time, and place, and person, and manner, 
and matter should all be duly considered. According to 
the degree of a people's civilization, its political and 
social position, its natural aptitude, and its educational 
facilities, will it express itself. The stage of its growth 
is to be taken into account. At no two epochs of its 

' The word man is pure Sanskrit, and means to think. 



INTKODUCTION. 3 

social and political life will it use the same form of 
utterance. 

6. The history of a people's literature, then, is in- 
separable from that of a people's life. It traces the 
growth and development of the one and the other from 
the first dawnings of time, and calls attention to influ- 
ences on other peoples, and other peoples' influences 
upon them. It is the aim of the present work so to tell 
the history of English literature. It begins by describ- 
ing English character, and English thought, as they 
exist when first the English people comes upon the arena 
of history. It then considers the growth and develop- 
ment of that thought, and that character, as they ex- 
pand under the influences of Kelt, Roman, Dane, and 
Norman, and are fostered by the teacliings of Christian- 
ity. It seeks the life-thoughts of an author in his 
works, and of an epoch in its literature. 

7. Throughout the present work this canon of criti- 
cism is the guiding principle ; part of a people's litera- 
ture is common to the human race ; another part is 
common to the family of races to which the people 
belongs ; still another part is peculiar to one or other 
of these races, and borrowed from them ; the residue is 
the people's own. And of this residue a portion is 
impersonal, and belongs to the age in which it is ex- 
pressed ; the remainder is personal, and peculiar to the 
individual. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE CONTINENTAL HOMESTEAD. 

Theee neighboring races invaded the island of Brit- 
ain. They found it occupied by a kindred race known 
as the Kelt. After a long and fierce struggle they es- 
tablished themselves upon the island, drove the greater 
part of the natives to the west, v/here they became 
known to them as Welsh or aliens,^ subjugated others, 
and finally imposed upon all their laws and government. 
In their Continental homestead they were known as 
Jutes, Saxons, and Angles or English ; in their new in- 
sular home they called themselves Englishmen and their 
language English.^ As such they will be known to us 
from the beginning. All three races are of the same 
stock, having the same religion, ruled by the same laws 
and customs, and speaking the same language. Let us 
determine their intellectual and social standing prior to 
their making the conquest of England. 

I. — English and Aryan. 

The English inhabited that part of Europe now 
known as the Schleswig-Holstein provinces and the 

^ Wealas — Walsch — Walloon — strangers. 

^ Englisc. The terra Anglo-Saxon is of modern date. 



6 THE CONTINENTAL HOMESTEAD. 

Netherlands. This was their second homestead. Many 
centuries previously they lived in their cradle-land in 
Asia. They bear kinship with the Persian and Hindu ; 
but their difference of occupation, the nature of their 
soil, and the influence of climate so changed their na- 
tures, and gave such direction to their thoughts, that it 
were difficult to imagine them originally one people 
with the Hindu, did they not retain evidence of the re- 
lationship in their language, their mythologies, their 
proverbs, their fables and fundamental ideas, all of 
which prove them to be of the same stock. There is a 
heredity of thought and speech as well as a heredity of 
race. - In both English and Sanskrit words do we lind 
palpable remnants of that heredity. Sometimes the 
words were identical in sound and in meaning, as the 
Sanskrit term nama, which is our word " name." ^ 
Sometimes, while the word remains, its primitive mean- 
ing becomes changed in one or other of the languages. 
Such is the word path, which as a verb means "to go." ^ 
So also, in our irregular verbs, we have forms which 
can be accounted for only by a comparative study of 
the Sanskrit. Take, for instance, the verb to he. The 
forms is and am come from the verb as, of the same 
meaning, and its first person singular, asmi ; the form 
was is found in the verb vas, to dwell ; and the form he 
is one with hhu, a word having also the same meaning.^ 
And it is only in a language cognate to the Sanskrit 
that we find the root-word of our comparative hetter. 
" In the Persian," says Cardinal Wiseman, "we have pre- 

^ See Bosworth's Anglo-Saxon and English Dictionary^ p. 1*71, and 
Max Miiller's Sanskrit Grammar^ p. 87. 

^ Benfey's Sanskrit- English Dictionary^ p. 508. 

^ See Max Miiller's Sanskrit Grammar for each of these verbs, pp. 
277, 260, 245. 



ENGLISH AND ARYAN. 7 

cisely the same comparative, hehter, with exactly the 
same signification, regularly formed from its positive 
behy good ; just as we have in the same language had- 
ter^ worse, from bad.^'' * These specimens might be 
multiplied, but they suffice to point our meaning. 

The English, then, are a branch of the Aryan family. 
Many hereditary traits have been transmitted to them 
from the parent stock. That primitive people, the mother 
race of Kelt and Teuton and Hindu, was devoted to the 
cultivation of the soil ; the English have, at all times, 
shown a fondness for the tillage of the land, except when 
brought face to face with almost insurmountable difiicul- 
ties, as the encroachments of the sea. That mother race 
was passionately attached to Nature- worship ; the Eng- 
lish retained their inherited love for Nature. They deified 
the elements, even as did their sister peoples, the Greeks 
and Hindus, and as did their Aryan mother prior to either. 
With impetuous feelings rushed they to the hunt ; with 
reckless eagerness they committed themselves to the 
mercy of wind and wave. The Aryan was a people 
fond of philosophical speculation ; the common prob- 
lems and the nearly common solutions, inherited by 
the Aryan nations, prove as much. But the English of 
old became too besotted with heavy and coarse drinks, \ 
which they indulged in to excess, to be able to specu- 
late with the acuteness of Greek or Hindu. With the 
Aryan, home was a sacred refuge, and all the family re- 
lations were held in reverence as well as honor ; this 
became, with the English, one of their most widely 
cherished and deeply rooted sentiments. The Aryan 
fell under the influences of his senses, to the clouding 
of his spiritual parts ; so were the English greatly 

^ Lectures on Science and Revealed Religion^ lect. i, p. 30. 



8 THE CONTINENTAL HOMESTEAD. 

wrapped up in their material natures. The Aryan was 
given to poetry in which man and Nature were blended ; 
so were the English, but with a difference. Living in 
the land of the sunny East, the ancestral race rejoiced 
in the harmonies and beauties of form and color ; but 
in their woody, mist-enveloped land, the English lost 
sight of these things ; their nature and disposition be- 
came so changed that form and color ceased to be for 
them what they were for the Greek, and even for their 
Keltic neighbors of warmer blood and more vivid im- 
agination — a passion. The weird, the indefinite, and the 
mysterious appealed most forcibly to their imagination. 

II.— Soil, Climate, and Character. 

In their Continental homestead, the English lived 
and worked and had their aspirations and their opin- 
ions of things. To understand aright the Englishman 
of modern history, we must observe him as he was two 
thousand years ago. We must learn his ways and pene- 
trate his thoughts. National traits of character are not 
the work of a day ; they are the outcome of centuries 
of slow, persistent action. Man begins by accommo- 
dating himself to circumstances ; this is the first step 
he takes in the formation of his manhood. Circum- 
stances in their turn react upon him, his thoughts, his 
ways, his dispositions ; this gives the final direction to 
character, suggests divergence from the early home- 
life, and creates a new type of race. In general, the 
nature of the soil will determine the occupations of a 
people ; its occupations will give color and shape to its 
thoughts ; they, in turn, will mold the expression of 
its literature. The native land of the Old English was 
a land of fog and mist, of fat, muddy soil, and of slow, 
sluggish rivers. It was covered with vast forests. It 



SOIL, CLIMATE, AND CIIARACTER. 9 

was a land on which the sea was ever making encroach- 
ments ; and in this respect it is still the same land. 
Witness the untiring exertions of Holland to repel 
these encroachments, and to recover lost ground, by 
her system of dikes. But in the days of which we 
speak there were no dikes. The result was, that at the 
equinoxes the whole country became suddenly sub- 
merged, and as suddenly the Water subsided. Tacitus 
describes the country under one of these visitations : 
" The wind blowing hard from the north, and the 
waves, as usual at the equinox, rolling with a prodi- 
gious swell, . . . the country was laid under water. 
The sea, the shore, and the fields presented one vast 
expanse. The depths and shallows, the quicksands and 
the solid ground, were no more distinguished. . . . The 
return of day presented a new phase of things : the 
waters had subsided and the land appeared." ^ A peo- 
ple so situated must needs accommodate itself to the 
sea, and make it yield profit in proportion to the de- 
struction it deals. On this principle acted the Old 
English. They not only became accustomed to the 
sea ; they loved it ; their greatest pleasure they found 
in sporting in its waves. Their little boats of hide 
danced about upon its rugged bosom as though they 
were things of life. Beowulf would have been con- 
sidered no fit hero for an Old English poem, had he 
not, when a youth, ventured on the stormy ocean ; and 
so we find him in friendly competition with Brecca, 
striving to perform feats of valor. Hunf erth speaks : 

" Then on the sound ye rowed, and thence with arras 
The ocean covered, and the sea-streets measured ; 
"With hands ye gripped and glided o'er the main ; 

' Annals, B. i., chap. 70. 



10 THE CONTINENTAL HOMESTEAD. 

With winter's fury boiled the waves o' the deep ; 
While on the waters toiled ye seven nights." ^ 

But the sea was not only a pleasure for this people ; 
f it was the sole inheritance of the younger members of a 
family. They had no share in the land. They had to 
win for themselves a livelihood and a position in society. 
They were regarded as wargrs, wolves, outlaws. It is 
related that every five years the Scandinavians sent 
away their adult sons, reserving only those who were 
to perpetuate the family. " The wargr shakes dust on 
his father and mother, throws an herb over his shoulders, 
and with a bound clearing the inclosure of his paternal 
property, he seeks adventures afar."^ There are gener- 
ally others of the same age and condition to accompany 
him. And with light heart and cheery voice they cast 
their boats upon the water and make their home thereon 
for years to come. They live by plunder and piracy. 
"They overcome all who have the courage to oppose 
them. They surprise all who are so imprudent as not 
to be prepared for their attack. When they pursue 
they infallibly overtake ; when they are pursued their 
escape is certain. They despise danger ; they are inured 
to shipwreck ; they are eager to purchase booty with 
the peril of their lives. Tempests, which to others are 
so dreadful, to them are subjects of joy." Such is the 
picture drawn of them by Sidonius ; * nor is it overcol- 

* ihk git on sund re&n, thaer git eagor- stream, 
earmum thehton, maeton mere-straeta, 
rnundum brugdon, glidon ofer garsecg ; 
geofon ythum weol, wintres wylme ; 
git on waeteres aeht seofon-niht swuncon. — 

Beowulf, viii., 1029-1038. 
^ Caesar Cantu, Histoire Univerf<eUe, vol. vii. 
* viii., 6 ; Lingard, vol. i., p. 16. 



SOIL, CLIMATE, AND CHARACTER. H 

ored. They were the terror of the sea. They were as 
cruel and fierce as they were adventurous. They only 
respected the fierceness and lawlessness as great as then- 
own. They put the vanquished to death. While their 
neighbors, the Visigoths, were content with two thirds 
of the property,^ nothing short of extermination seemed 
to satisfy them. It is to be expected that such a stormy 
life would render any other mode of living tame and 
monotonous. So we find them when in trouble seeking 
solace in the pleasures of the ocean. Thus, Ragnar 
Lodbrok loses his wife in death. He leaves his govern- 
ment and his children in care of guardians, and betakes 
himself to a life of piracy, " that in the society of his 
vikings he might drown or mitigate his sorrow for one 
whom he has so tenderly loved." ' Here are the fore- 
fathers of the Drakes and the Raleighs. This manner 
of living establishes bravery alone as the ideal of life. 
Wisdom and prudence were only secondary by side 
of this one quality. Sorli and Hamdir go to avenge 
the fate of their sister. On their way they meet their 
brother Erp. They ask him what help he would give 
them in their enterprise. He tells them that as hand 
helps hand and foot helps foot, so will he help them. 
His prudent and truly wise answer is not in accordance 
with their fierce mood ; they slay him and repent their 
rashness at leisure.^ Could a people warring in such a 
spirit know mercy ? No wonder that Urien calls Idda 
and his twelve sons firebrands." 

1 Ca3sar Cantu, Yoi. vii., p. 286. 

2 Thorpe, Northern 2fytJiology^ vol. i., p. 109. 
'^ Thorpe, loc. cit., p. 108. 

* Flamddwyn. 



12 THE CONTINENTAL HOMESTEAD. 

III. — Laws and Customs. 

While the vikings developed the spirit of war, plun- 
der, piracy, and rash bravery, their brothers at home 
had their own peculiar way of liAdng. But it was not 
altogether a lawless one. It was not as the dumb and 
low herd. Wherever we fall upon a number of men we 
find them an organized society, living together in obe- 
dience to known and recognized laws and customs, and 
each prepared to sacrifice to a certain extent his own 
ease and happiness for the public good. Such was the 
condition of the Old English. Their first social bond 
was one of blood. They ranged themselves according 
to kinship. They were divided into companies of ten 
men, each of whom pledged himself to obtain repara- 
tion from him who violated the common peace. This 
was called a tithing. Each tithing had for head a tun- 
gerefa. Every ten tithings was called a hundred among 
the Saxons, and loapen-tmce among the English. The 
hundreds were under a gerefa. Several hundreds com- 
posed a shire, scir, commanded by a scirgerefa.^ Ev- 
ery man was thus bound up with every other man in 
mutual protection. He inherited the land to improve 
and defend it. To abandon it was considered a crime. 
The Salic Law ^ forbids a citizen to leave his birthplace 
without the consent of every other citizen in it. The 
Lombard Law of Luitprand pronounces penalty of 
death on the one attempting to leave the kingdom.^ 
And such, no doubt, was the universal custom in the 
mother-homes of these barbarians. They had an heredi- 
tary nobility ; but their king seems to have been chosen 
from among the ablest of their chiefs, according to cir- 

^ Whence our word sheriff. ^ Titre, xlvii. 

^ Lib. iii., art. iv. 



LAWS AND CUSTOMS. 13 

cumstances. Beda says of the ancient English that 
" they have no king, but several lords who rule their 
nation ; and when a war happens they cast lots indiffer- 
ently, and on whomsoever the lot falls him they follow 
and obey during the war ; but, as soon as the war is 
ended, all these lords are again equal in power." ^ This 
assertion might hold true of the marauding expeditions ; 
it might even exactly represent the condition of the Teu- 
ton races at certain epochs ; but it was not anciently uni- 
versal. When Beda wrote these nations were in the con- 
dition of the Greeks under an oligarchy, as Corinth un- 
der the Bacchiadae, and Athens under the Eupatridae. 
But Tacitus tells us that in his day the kings were cho- 
sen from the nobility ; ^ and this assertion of Mr. Henry 
Sumner Maine is confirmed by history : " With the dif- 
ferences, however, that in the East aristocracies became 
religious, in the West civil or political, the proposition 
that an historical era of aristocracies succeeded an his- 
torical era of heroic kings may be considered as true, 
if not of all mankind, at all events of all branches of 
the Indo-European family of nations." ^ But the kings 
were among the Old English limited in their jurisdic- 
tion by the nobility. These met in council, in the . 
gaicdmr/,* and framed the laws that were considered 
needful for the people.^ At a later date this same 
assembly will be known as the Upper House of Parlia- 

^ B. v., ch. 10. 

^ " Reges ex nobilitate, duces ex virtute sumunt." — Gcrmania, ch.vii. 

^ Ancient Law^ p. 11. 

^ From gau^ a canton, and dingen, to deliberate ; hence the Old Eng- . 
lish word thing^ meaning an assembly or judgment-room. Our modern 
busting is hus-thing. 

^ Dans le prologue des lois des angles, il est dit qu'elles sont faitcs 
omnium consensu. Cautu, Hist. Un.^ t. viii., p. 808. See the introduc- 
tion to Alfred's laws. 



14 THE CONTINENTAL HOMESTEAD. 

ment. And among the nobility one there was who was 
the chosen confidant, the knower of secrets, run-wita, 
and the counselor, rded-hora, as was ^schere that of 
Hrothgar/ He will afterward be known in mediaeval 
times as the king's favorite, and in modern times as the 
prime minister. 

The Old English recognized two orders of society, 
the bond and the free. Possession of a certain amount 
of land was the indispensable condition of a freeman. 
" All that we learn," says Kemble, " of the original 
principles of settlement, prevalent either in England or 
on the Continent of Europe, among the nations of Ger- 
manic blood, rests uj)on two foundations : first, the pos- 
session of land ; second, the distinction of rank ; and 
the public law of every Teutonic tribe implies the depen- 
dence of one upon the other principle to a greater or less 
extent." ^ This was the animating principle of conquest 
among the English both in their old and new homes. 
He was nothing who possessed not land. Life was 
not worth the having without it ; therefore, the landless 
one was prepared to stake his all in its acquisition. He 
lives to acquire wealth and power ; he acquires wealth 
and power to be held in estimation. For this purpose 
each chief has with him a certain number of companions 
who are pledged to stand by him under all circum- 
stances ; to fight with him shoulder to shoulder in com- 
bat ; to avenge his death, and on no account to survive 
his fall in the fray. This was so in the days of Tacitus. 
He tells us that he who survived his leader survived to 
live in infamy.^ Death was considered preferable to 

^ Beoioulf, 11., 269-70. 
^ Saxons in Midland, vol. i., chap, ii., p. 35. 

3 " Jam vero infame in omnem vitam ac probrosum, superstitetn 
principi suo ex acie recessisse." — 3Io7'. Germ., xiv. 



LAWS AXD CUSTOMS. 15 

such a life. Wiglaf reproaches the followers of Beo- 
wulf for surviving their prince and for their cowardice 
in not helping him to fight the firedrake ; and he adds 
the penalty : 

" By our land's rights must each man of tlie tribe 
Idly wander forth ; then nobles from afar 
Your banishment, inglorious deed, shall learn. 
Far better death than live a life ofMamey ^ 

This sentiment they brought with them to their 
British home. At the death of Byrhtnoth, which oc- 
curred about the year 991 a. d., many of the leaders ex- 
press their resolution to die with their slain chief, 
while they execrate one they had seen fly. One " vowed 
in haughty words that he would not yield a foot's breadth 
of earth, nor turn his back in flight since his superior 
lay dead." "^ 

The freemen were divided into eorls and ceorls. 
In their language manhood was identified with eorl- 
ship.^ Of the eorls there were two classes : the ethe- 
lings or nobles, who enjoyed liberty, the right of hold- 
ing property, and the power of jurisdiction ; and the 
ahrimans, who were excluded from the malls or deliber- 
ative assemblies and cultivated the soil. They need not 
go to war ; they were free to pay a sum of money and 
supply provisions in the stead. The ceorls or tributaries 
possess individual liberty, but they are alienated with 

^ lond-rihtes mot 

thaere maeg-burge monna aeghwylc 
idel hweorfan, syththan aethelingas 
feorran gefricgean fleam eowerne, 
domleasan daed. Death hith sella 

eorla gehwylcum thonne edwii-lif. — Beovmlf^ xxxix., 5765, et seq. 
- Death of Byrhtnoth. Conybeare's Anglo-Saxon Poetry. 
'^ Eorlscipe is manliness, courage. See Bosworth's Anglo-Saxon and 
English Dictionary. 



16 THE CONTINENTAL HOMESTEAD. 

the lands on wMcli they live/ Impoverished proprietors 
who found themselves unable to respond to the heriban, 
or call to arms, frequently renounced their civil rights 
and placed themselves under the protection of a richer 
proprietor.^ The serfs or slaves had no rights or privi- 
leges. Their master held over them the power of life 
and death. He was responsible for them as he was for the 
cattle of his field. If their master was held amenable 
before the law, they were to pay the fines for him. In 
time of war, if it was considered expedient to make them 
fight, they were liberated, as it was only a freeman who 
could bear arms. 

Nearly all crimes could be compensated for by the 
payment of a certain sum of money. The only excep- 
tions were treason, desertion, and poison. These in- 
volved capital punishment, and the sentence was pro- 
nounced, not by the chief, but by the priest. He was 
the more immediate representative of the Author of life 
and death. This sentiment might not be expressed ; it 
certainly was implied. In case of homicide, which on 
account of excessive drinking and the custom of always 
bearing arms in public, was frequent, the family of the 
slain man might either accept the compensation-money, 
mmg-hot, or take upon themselves the avenging of his 
death. The individual did not stand alone upon his 
own responsibility. His kin were held accountable for 
his acts.^ And for every offense against person or prop- 
erty there was set down a fine. That against the per- 
son was called werigeld ; that against property vndri- 

1 Cantu, Hist Un., vii., p. 297. 

^ This was known as mundebund. 

3 Thus, Ethelbihrt's laws decree that if a murderer leaves the coun- 
try his kinsfolk shall pay half the fine. They are as early as 600. See 
Tacitus, De Mor. Ger.^ xii. 



LAWS AND CUSTOMS. 17 

geld? These old law-makers went into all imaginable 
details. According to tlie tooth that was broken was a 
man fined. For the wounding of the finger, the hand, 
the arm, the head, the eye, the ear, was there a graded 
list of fines. So too for property. Every implement of 
agriculture, every domestic animal, every piece of fur- 
niture, had its set price, if stolen, injured, or broken. 
These laws they will afterward take with them into 
England, and they will be attributed to Ethelbirht, or 
Ini, or Hlothere, or more especially to Alfred. The 
unwi'itten custom may have existed for centuries prior 
to the written code. Laws are not invented, they grow 
out of circumstances. And in fact what is English law 
to-day but what it was under Alfred, what it had been 
in the Continental homestead, a tissue of particular rules 
based upon precedents ; these precedents finally resolv- 
ing themselves into a judgment passed on a particular 
case ? There is no science, no digest of principles. 
The only improvement made upon the old order of 
things is that the laws have ceased to be a simple rela- 
tion of man to man ; and instead of being administered 
in the name of private revenge or personal satisfaction, 
they are laid down for justice's sake. The history of 
all law resolves itself into the recording of the process of 
this transformation. Formerly, society did not trouble 
itself about the individual, once he had paid the required 
amount to the king and the injured party.^ Nowadays, 
it looks to his future good behavior. There is also a 
difference in the manner of proceeding. Then, the ac- 
cused was presumed guilty till he proved himself other- 
wise ; at present, the law regards him as innocent till 
he is proved guilty. To establish his innocence his own 

^ Grimm, Deutschen Rechis-alterihumer, 650. 

' Tacitus, 3for. Germ.^ xii., jEthelhirhtes Bdmds^ § 9, El. Schraid. 



18 THE CONTINENTAL HOMESTEAD. 

assertion was not enough. He got his neighbors and 
kinsmen to swear to the truth of a fact. In their Brit- 
ish home, these neighbors will be set down as a fixed 
number ; they will become the judges of the law in all 
important cases ; and men will say that Alfred the Great 
organized them into a jury. We have here the germ of 
trial by jury, with all its advantages and disadvantages. 
But in the old homestead there are other means for 
establishing the truth or falsity of an accusation. One 
of the most popular and universal among the Germanic 
nations was the duel. In English law it is known as 
the wager of battle. Velleius Paterculus speaks of dis- 
putes among the Germans which were wont to be deter- 
mined by arms.^ And he further says that they de- 
spised the Roman method of settling difficulties by the 
decisions of a law tribunal. Nor were the early Greeks 
and Romans without this means of determining guilt or 
innocence. Long after the practice had been abolished 
the word in which it was expressed remained. With 
both peoples the same word meant both to fight and 
to judge or determine.^ This is to be looked for among 
a warlike people. And when to this is added a spirit of 
ferocious independence, such as burned in the breast of 
the whole Teutonic people, we have all the conditions 
favorable to making the duel a most popular mode of 
trial. The primary idea underlying this practice was 
expressed by Gondebaud in his reply to Avitus : " Is it 
not true that in the wars of nations, as in private com- 
bats, the issue is in the hand of God ? And why will 
not His providence give victory to the justest cause ? " ^ 
It is also true that to rely on God's direct interference 

^ Lib. ii., chap. 118 ; Blackstone, B. iii., § 337. 
^ Greek, nplveiv ; Latin, decernere. 
3 Cantu Hist. Un., t. vii., p. 333. 



LAW.:^ AND CUSTOMS. 19 

on all occasions is to tempt Him. However, the duel 
pleased their savage natures ; they loved to witness it ; 
they honored the champion ; the coward who craved ^ 
for mercy they despised. This practice of the wager 
of battle will be introduced in the new home ; it will 
be revived by William the Conqueror ; ^ it will be ap- 
pealed to in 1612 and 1631, and will be abolished only 
in 1817.' 

Another form of proving one's guilt or innocence 
was the ordeal of fire and water. This was universal 
among the Aryan nations. We find it in India. The 
beautiful Sita proves her innocence by fire.* We find 
it in Greece. The messenger tells Creon that he and 
the watchman were ready to lift masses of red-hot iron 
in their hands, and to pass through the fire, and to ap- 
peal to the gods by oath that they had not buried Poly- 
nices.^ To the Old English, to whom fire and water 
were not only elements but deities, this mode of appeal 
had its attractions. Surely the gods would not harm 
the innocent one who would commit himself to their 
mercies, as surely would they not let pass unpunished 
the guilty one placing himself in their power ; there- 
fore they placed confidence in this manner of trial. 

Another feature of the Old English, and one which 
they shared in common with other Teutonic tribes, was 
their custom of possessing their lands in common, and 
moving about from place to place. " In cultivating the 
soil," says Tacitus, " they do not settle on one spot, but 
shift about different places." And Csesar describes the 

^ Hence the word craven ; Anglo-Saxon, crafian. 

2 Not introduced^ as Blackstone has it. Commentaries^ B. iii., § 338 

3 59 Geo. III., c. 46. 
* Ramayana. 

5 Sophocles, Antigone, 262-266. 
2 



20 THE CONTINENTAL HOMESTEAD. 

process : " The magistrates and chiefs parcel out yearly 
to the tribes and families united together such a quan- 
tity of land and in such part of the country as they 
deem proper, and the year after compel them to move 
elsewhere." ^ Thus they were taught not to become at- 
tached to any particular piece of land, lest their ambi- 
tion and martial qualities lie dormant or fall into con- 
tempt. This reveals another trait in their manner of 
thinking. It was not this or that piece of land that was 
the object of their desires : it was land, property, not 
for its own sake, but as representative of their relative 
standing in their respective tribes. " The system of 
an annual changing," says Lappenberg, " or at least 
changeable possessions of land, and the custom neces- 
sarily attending it, of migrating, prejudicial as they 
were to the solid interests of nations, nevertheless re- 
quired activity and strength of mind ; the individual, 
too, whose home afforded him no permanent settlement 
would not respect that of a stranger ; while piracy, en- 
nobled by stratagem and valor, is indebted only to 
an established system of social order for its disgrace 
and punishment." ^ It was a system calculated to 

^ "Neque quisqiiam agri modum certum aut fines habet proprios, 
sed magistratus ac principes in annos singulos gentibus cognationi- 
busque hominum, qui una coierunt, quantum et quo loco visum est 
agri attribuunt atque anno post alio transire cogunt." — De Bello Gal- 
lico, lib. vi., cap. 22. See also lib. iv., 1. The custom still exists in 
the Hochwald of Thor, except that the division is not made annually. — 
Lappenberg, ii., 323. 

2 Englandunder Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. i., p. 86. Professor Stubbs, 
with his usual felicity, thus expresses the relations of the proprietor to 
the land : "As the king is the king of the nation, not of the land, the 
land is rather the sign or voucher for the freedom of its possessor than 
the basis of his rights. He possesses his laud as being a full, free 
member of the community; henceforth the possession of it is the attes- 



LAWS AND CUSTOMS. 21 

strengthen individual liberty. And everything in their 
customs and laws spoke of this sentiment. Each house 
stood apart, surrounded by a piece of land that was re- 
served for the use of the proprietor. No one dare enter 
without blowing a horn or giving some signal of his 
coming, otherwise he was regarded as an enemy, and 
was dealt by accordingly. Each village was constructed 
in the same manner. It was surrounded by a march or 
mark of land, which was regarded as sacred ground. 
He who would cross it, without giving a signal, was 
looked upon with suspicion, and his every movement 
watched. Everybody entering a house was received 
with hospitality. Food and drink were provided for 
him, and no questions asked till he was refreshed and 
rested. " To injure guests they regard as impious ; 
they defend from harm those who have come to them 
for any purpose whatever, and esteem them inviolable ; 
to them the houses of all are open, and maintenance 
freely supplied." ^ But the host was held responsible 
for the guest under his roof. On his departure, he 
accompanied him to the limits of his vil, not through 
motives of personal kindness or politeness, but to be 
sure that his guest committed no act for which he, as 
host, would have to suffer. In rehabilitating the Old 
English, we must in a great measure forget the ameni- 
ties of modern life, and think of a people with a selfish 
nature uncontrolled by conventionalities. They were 
ferocious, and their ferociousness spoiled the good ef- 
fects of the priceless liberty of which they were justly 
so jealous. It was a liberty totally regardless of time 
and place. We find the Saxon portion of the Teutonic 
race afterward carrying this spirit of personal liberty 

tation, type, and embodiment of his freedom and political rights." — 
Constitutional Hislory of England^ vol. i., p. 50. 
* Caesar, De Bel. Gal.^ lib. vi., cap. 23. 



22 THE CONTINENTAL HOMESTEAD. 

with them among other nations, to the extent that the 
Lombards had to enact a law banishing those Saxons 
who refused to abide by other than their own Saxon 
laws/ 

The men went armed, and so universal was the cus- 
tom, man came to be known as the weaponed one — 
wcepned. Thus, where the modern English use the terms 
male and female, their ancestors of old spoke of the 
wcepned 2iTidi vnfman^ In every public place went they 
in arms. Whenever they held a council, they did so 
armed. They looked more to the decoration of their 
shields than to the adorning of their persons. To lose 
them was a disgrace. They took the greatest pride in 
decorating them in variegated colors. In Beowulf, the 
shield is called a yellow disk — geolo-rand. They prized 
their shield and their sword or spear as the instruments 
of the sole occupation for which they lived. To war 
was their ideal of life. Even after death they could 
think of no higher form of existence than to drink beer 
in the halls of the Valhalla, and fight their battles daily 
over again. Therefore they never put forth their strength 
except in the battle-field. And then the energy they 
disj^layed was great. Nothing could resist it when un- 
der disciplined leadership. They became furious. They 
bit their shields and uttered the most horrid shrieks. 
They considered themselves under the immediate* pro- 
tection of the god of battle.' In their fury they 
played with life and death. War they regarded as a 
play. Their war-shield they called a play-shield— ^j»Ze<7a- 
scyld. And among their synonyms for war we find asc- 
plega, the sport of lances or spears, and hand-plega^ a 

^ Caesar, Cantu, t. vii., p. 315. 

"^ Akerman, Remains of Pagan Saxondom. 

2 Woden. Hence the old English word for madness, wodnes. 



LAWS AKD CUSTOMS. 23 

contest.' But, the war over, they became inactive. 
Occasionally they would hunt. They had a hound — a 
ren-hund — of which they were very foncl. But, when 
not so engaged,' they did nothing requiring physical 
exertion. " The intrepid warrior," says Tacitus, " who 
in the field braved every danger, became in time of peace 
a listless sluggard." "" They were addicted to gambling. 
When they possessed naught else, they staked their 
persons and went into bondage to satisfy their creditors. 
They also gave days and nights to deep drinking. As 
a necessary consequence, quarrels were frequent and 
dangerous. "Disputes," to quote Tacitus again, "as 
will be the case with people in liquor, frequently arise, 
and are seldom confined to opprobrious language. The 
quarrel generally ends in a scene of blood." ^ In such 
a manner of living we look in vain for a guiding princi- 
ple. There is no restraint on individual impulses. Spirit 
is entirely subject to physical instincts. But we get 
insight into the germs of those vices that have been the 
bane of so many individuals, and brought disaster upon 
so many families in the new homestead centuries after. 

lY. — Condition of Womax. 

Here it may be asked how a people so brutalized 
could hold woman in reverence, and regard marriage 
as a sacred institution. Still Tacitus tells us so.* But 
it is to be remembered that Tacitus is detailing the 
manners and customs of the Teutonic nations, not sim- 

^ See Bosworth'a Didiortary. 

^ De Mor. Germ.^ cap, xv. 

^ Ibid^ xxii. 

* " Quanquam severa illic matriraonia." De Mor. Ger.^ xviii. 
" Paucissima in tam numcrosa gente adulteria ; quorum poena prae- 
sens et maritis permissa." Ibid^ xLx. 



24 THE CONTINENTAL HOMESTEAD. 

ply as a matter of history, but as a rebuke to Roman 
corruption. He therefore writes with more point than 
history warrants. In his desire to contrast he exagger- 
ates. The Teuton of old led a life of hardship. His 
was a simple mode of living. He knew few of the lux- 
uries of an Oriental or a Roman civilization. His slug- 
gish nature retained all its innate vigor. There was in 
his daily life nothing to enervate him and render him 
effeminate. But he entertained for woman no chivalric 
sense of delicacy. A creature of impulses, he was in- 
capable of restraint. He guarded her virtue simply 
through the motive of right and property which were 
vested in her. His sense of independence could not 
brook encroachments upon his possessions, whether of 
person or property. Hence he hedged woman in with 
laws that* were as wounding to her modesty as they 
were derogatory to her honor. They ignored her per- 
sonality. They guarded her as they would have guarded 
a pet animal or a fruit-bearing tree. Thus was it en- 
acted that the freeman who presses the finger of a free- 
woman is liable to a fine of six hundred pence ; of twelve 
hundred if he touches the arm ; of fourteen hundred if 
he places his hand above the elbow ; and so on through 
a grade of fines, entering into details as disgusting as 
they must have been futile. Nor were these laws con- 
fined to the Old English and their neighbors. They 
were generally used throughout the Teutonic races. In 
the Bavarian laws, he who disarranges a woman's hair 
or detaches her comb is fined a certain amount.^ ^^S' 
islation on such a subject, entering into such minute 
details, taking such stringent measures, implies great 
abuse, and proves conclusively that woman was not the 
object of respect to the ancient Teuton which some 
^ Caesar Cantu, Histoire Universellc, t. vii., p. 379. 



COA'DITION OF WOMAN. 25 

would make her, and that she was simply cared for be- 
cause she was to be the mother of the young heroes and 
vikings who were to perpetuate the name and the 
prowess of their fathers. Commenting on the punish- 
ment inflicted on the woman unfaithful to her husband, 
as related by Tacitus, namely, that her hair was cut, 
and she was whipped ignominiously through the vil- 
lage,^ Balmes remarks : " Certainly, this punishment 
gives us an idea of the infamy which was attached to 
adultery among the Germans, but it was little calcu- 
lated to increase the respect entertained for woman 
publicly. This would have been greater had she been 
stoned to death. " ^ 

Be this as it may, the more we study the condition 
of woman in those early days, the less pleasing a pic- 
ture does it present. She was the companion of man 
in war, and his slave in peace ; she attended to all the 
indoor and outdoor work ; ^ while he sat dozing in half- 
stupor by the fire she was up and doing ; she accom- 
panied him to the battle-field ; she stood by his side and 
encouraged him in moments of greatest danger. Liv- 
ing in such slavishness, she lost all the finer instincts of 
her womanly nature. The ideal woman of the Sagas of 
the North is one bloodthirsty, cruel, cold, heartless, and 
fatally beautiful. In the Volsung Saga, Signi counsels 
Sigmund to destroy her own children, since he does not 
consider them valiant enough.* " The daughter of the 
Danish jarl, seeing Egil taking his seat near her, repels 
him with scorn, reproaching him with seldom having 
provided the wolves with hot meat, with never having 
seen for a whole autumn a raven croaking over the car- 
nage. But Egil seized her, and pacified her, by sing 

' Be Mor. Gcr.^ cap. xix. ^ European Civilization, chap, xxvii. 

\ ^ De Mor. Ger., cap. xv. •* Ssemunda's Edda. 



26 THE CONTINENTAL HOMESTEAD. 

ing : * I have marched with my bloody sword, and the 
raven has followed me. Furiously we fought ; the fire 
passed over the dwellings of men ; we slept in the 
blood of those who kept the gate.' " ^ Such is this 
maiden's ideal of a hero and of life. A fancy so steeped 
in carnage and crime could be possessed of a small 
share of tenderness and humanity. ISTor is the ideal 
woman of the Nibelungen-lied less fierce. Brunhild 
forces her suitors to contend with her in the games of 
throwing the spear, leaping, and hurling the stone, 
under the barbarous penalty of losing their heads in 
case of defeat. She afterward has Siegfried slain ; 
in return, his wife, Crimhild, after brooding over her 
wrongs for years, revenges herself by slaying his mur- 
derer. She is possessed of as little humanity as her 
rival. She asks Hagen where the fatal Hoard is ; 
Hagen replies that he never will disclose it while any 
of her brothers lives, whereupon she orders her broth- 
er's head to be cut off, and, holding it up, exclaims, 
" I bring it to an end." " Thou hast it now according 
to thy will," said Hagen ; " of the Hoard knoweth none 
but God and I ; from thee, she-devil — Valendinne — 
shall it for ever be hid." In her rage she kills him 
with her own hand.^ Not in representations like these 
are we to find the ideal of true womanhood. Such 
characters bear no other traces of their sex than the 
name, and woman unsexed is a monster. No surprise 
is it, then, to read of the English lady of primitive 
times cruel to her servants and slaves.' The types set 

* Apud Taine, vol. i., p. 27. 

^ Nibelungen-lied, ed. Simrock, p. 383. See also Carlyle's Essay 
on Yan der Hagen's edition of this poem. 

3 Wright's Hiaiory of Domestic Manna's and Sentiments in the Mid- 
dle Ages, p 58. 



CONDITIOX OF WOMAN. 27 

up for her admiration were such as belittled the tender- 
ness and delicacy of feeling and thought that belong 
to true wifely, motherly, and sisterly qualities. The 
Edda has summed up the Teutonic estimate of woman 
in these words : " Praise a woman when she is buried, 
. . . praise a maiden after she is married." ^ This is 
denying her all merit. But later woman will be eman- 
cipated ; her rights and privileges will be recognized ; 
she will be restored to full liberty of action ; a halo of 
tenderness will be woven about her name ; the day will 
come when she will no longer be ignored as heir to her 
father's property, and we will read among the formulas 
of Marculf a deed proclaiming that, as the Lord has 
given a father daughters as well as sons, who love him 
as well as they, he sets aside the former impious cus- 
tom, and wills that after death they share equally in 
the goods he leaves.'^ But, before this change takes 
place, the whole framework of society must be altered. 
Under the old order of things woman does not inherit be- 
cause she is unable to bear the responsibilities attached 
thereto, for with the property inherited came also the 
feuds, the avenging of injuries, and the vengeance to 
be taken for homicide,^ but in the new order, men will 
have other things to live for than war and vengeance. The 
power that will bring about that change is Christianity. 

' Hava-Mal. 

2 " Dulcissimae filijB N. N. diutuma scd impia inter nos consuetudo 
tenetur, ut de terra paterna sorores cum fratribus portionera non habe- 
ant. Sed ego, perpendens banc impietatem, sicut mihi a Domino aequali- 
ter donati estis filii, ita sitis a me gequaliter diligendi, et de rebus meis 
post decessum aequaliter gratulemini." 

^ Thus the Thuringian law is explicit on this point: "Ad quemcum- 
que haereditas terrse pervenerit ad ilium vestis bellica, id est lorica, et . 
ultio proximi, et solutio leudis debit pertinere." — Canciani. Leg. Barb.^ 
tit. iii., art. 5, p. 31. 



28 THE CONTINENTAL HOMESTEAD. 

Among the well-to-do class of the Old English, from 
the second to the fifth centuries, woman's chief occupa- 
tion was, what it afterward became in the new home- 
stead, spinning, weaving, and embroidering. The fine 
for injury done the hands of a goldsmith and embroi- 
deress was great/ These two avocations were held in 
esteem. It is proof that gold and embroidered orna- 
ments were manufactured and held in request. In Beo- 
wulf, the palace is variegated with gold — gold-fdh ; ^ 
the boar's likeness that the men bear on their cheeks is 
gehroden golde ^ — adorned with gold ; Hengist's band 
should supply as much treasure of rich gold — -fmttan 
goldes — as would decorate the Frisian race in the beer- 
haU ; * Wealthow walks forth under a golden diadem — 
gyldnum hedge ; ^ Haereth's daughter is given, gold- 
adorned — gold-hroden — to the young warrior ; ® whence 
we learn that men and women both used ornaments of 
gold. But this was after the days of Tacitus, for he 
tells us that the use of gold and silver was unknown to 
them, with the exception of those who had come in con- 
tact with Roman civilization. Every house was divided 
into two parts, the beer-hall or reception-room for stran- 
gers and guests, and the female apartments, exclusively 
used by the women. These were not always contigu- 
ous. "For others," says Wright, and his description 
holds true for the Continental home as well as for the 
British, " and for the ladies especially, little rooms were 
built outside, often standing apart from any other build- 
ing ; and the Anglo-Saxons called this room a hur, which 
in our change of language answers to our bower. '''' ' There 

1 Lappenberg, i., 94. ^ 1., 2330. 

2 Beowulf, 1., 621. « 1., 3900. 

3 1.J 614. ' Homes of Other Days, p. 4 

4 1.. 2190. 



CONDITION OF WOMAN. 29 

they sewed, and with their servants and slaves attended 
to their spinning and embroidery. But they ate with 
the men in the large hail. When Ragnar visited his 
friend Oston, at Upsala, the King's daughter went around 
the hall presenting mead and wine to Ragnar and his 
men.^ Rowena gives the cup to Yortigern "with all 
the grace and neatness that might be, according to the 
fashion of her country." ^ At the feast given to Beo- 
wulf, where he never saw greater joy, the Queen, Weal- 
thow, was present, and " at times surveyed the hall," 
while Hrothgar's daughter from time to time bore the 
ale-cup to the earls. ^ And on the day of his amval 
Wealthow greeted the men in the hall, mindful of their 
kin — cynna gemyndig — and first gave the cup to Hroth- 
gar, bidding him be blithe, and afterward to Beowulf 
and his companions. And she thanked God, most wise 
in words — loisfmst icordum — that she could put her trust 
in any earl for comfort against crime.* He partook of 
the cup, and in reply said that he was resolved to per- 
form deeds of noble valor against the monster, or, if he 
could not subdue him, to await his last days in the mead- 
hall. And the poem further relates that — 

"The woman liked the Goth's proud speech right well; 
His boasting pleased the joyful people's queen ; 
Then she, gold-decked, went bj her lord to sit." ^ 

These glimpses of a bygone order of things are valuable. 
They resuscitate the past. We see the men and women 

1 Thorpe, Northern Myihology, p. 113. 

2 Polydore Vergil, History of England, b. iii., p. 113. 

3 Thorpe's Beowulf, 11., 4040, et seq. * Ibid, p. 42. 

^ Tham wife tha Avord wel licodon, 
gilp-ewide Geates ; eode gold-hroden, 
freolicu folc-cwen, to hire frean sittan. 

Beowulf, ix., 1282, et seq. 



30 THE CONTINENTAL HOMESTEAD. 

of those old days move and speak before us. Let us 
approach the mead-hall and learn more of their ways. 

V. — The Mead-Hall. 

Not very imposing looks the house. It is one story 
high. It is built of wood. The use of stones for build- 
ing purposes is not yet known. So identified is timber 
with building, that the old English word for the act of 
building is thnhrian. We enter; but we look in vain for 
any of the comforts of a modern dwelling-house. Tapes- 
try hangs upon the walls. That which decorated the hall 
of Heorot was embroidered in gold : " Gold- varied shone 
the webs along the walls, many wonder-sights to those 
that gazed upon them." * Painted shields and the imple- 
ments of war look down upon us. There are no chairs. 
The luxury of a seat with a back to it is still Unthought 
of.'* But we find stools and benches.^ If we intend 
staying for the night, those same benches will be our 
beds, with a pillow, some fresh straw, and perhaps a 
bear-skin. Bedclothing was scanty in those days, nor 
was it much needed; the men were better able to en- 
dure excessive cold than excessive heat.* The floor is 

^Beowulf, XV., 1993, et seq. 

'■* The word chair is not found in Old English ; it is of Gallic origin. 

^ Petersen thus describes an Old Northern guest-hall : " The hall 
was an oblong parallelograro, having its two longer sides facing the 
north and the south, with a door at each end exactly opposite the one to 
the other ; the door was hung on hinges, and provided with a sort of 
lock. A row of benches was on each side, the higher of which was 
the most honorable, and in the middle of which was the high seat of 
the master or chief, having his face toward the north. On the oppo- 
site or lower bench was a somewhat lower high seat, exactly opposite 
the chief's, for the noblest guest." — Datimark i Hedenhold. Apud 
Thorpe, Preface to Beoivulf^ x. 

* Tacitus, Germania, cap. vi. 



THE MEAD-ILVLL. , 31 

covered with straw. Indeed, in the Old English way of 
thinking, to strew is to straw. The words are identical.* 
The table is made of plain boards, pieced together in 
such a manner that they can afterward be removed.^ It 
was called a hord.^ At an early day the round table was 
used. It afterward became the custom that each guest 
had a small side-table; but it was not permitted to eat 
alone. One of the greatest blots on a man's character 
would be the fact that he dined in private.* There are 
no glass windows in this house into which we have 
been introduced. We perceive only eye-holes — edg- 
thyrl. The Old English do not yet know the use of 
glass. At present, the birds can fly through the hall 
in winter ; not only are the eye-holes open, but the 
doors as well.^ The fire burns in the center of the 
hall; there are no chimneys. Perhaps near by is a large 
tree whose roots are under the floor, and whose branches 



' So also atreaw means a bed. See Bosworth. 

'2 The following riddle of the Old English writer, Bishop Tahtwin 
who lived about a. d. 700, tells how the table was broken up after hav- 
ing been used : " The table, speaking in its own person, says that it is in 
the habit of feeding people with all sorts of viands ; that while so doing 
it is a quadruped, and is adorned with handsome clothing ; that after- 
ward it is robbed of all its apparel, and when it has been thus robbed 
it loses its legs : 

' Multiferis omnes dapibus saturare solesco, 
Quadrupedem hinc felix ditem me sanxerit aetas, 
Esse tamen pulchris fatim dum vestibus orner, 
Certatim me praedones spoliare soleseunt ; 
Raptis nudate exuviis mox membra relinquunt.' " 
MS. Reg., 12th C, xxiii. Apud Wright, Homes of Other Days. 
^ Whence our words board, boarding, and the like. The original 
of our table— <o?/?— was confined to the gaming-table. Tceflung meant 
playing at dice. 

4 Wright's Domestic Manners and Sentiments^ p. 19. 

5 Beda, Ecclesiastical History, b. ii., chap. xiii. 



32 THE CONTIKENTAL HOMESTEAD. 

cover tlie roof/ In a prominent place is the boar's head 
in honor of Frey.*^ The host occupies the highest seat, 
at about the middle of the table. Near him sits his 
wife. Upon the table are cheese, and bread, and cereals, 
and broth, and meat, boiled or roasted.^ The meat is 
generally salt. Pork was a favorite dish. A servant 
holds the spit while each guest cuts from it a piece to 
suit himseK. The use of forks is still unknown. Near 
the fire are ranged the vessels containing the beer. The 
beer-horn is first handed to the host across the fire. He 
drinks first. Then all goes merrily. Conversation flows 
freely. Many are lovers of social converse, haughty 
warriors. In pleasant cities they sit at the feast and re- 
count tales; then wine wets the man's breast-passions; 
suddenly rises clamor in the company, and a various out- 
cry is sent forth.* The host makes it a point of honor 
to quell all disputes. At intervals the harper plays his 
harp. He is also a poet. He sings the soothing lay, 
the song serene. He recounts the tales of old. He tells 
of battles fought and victories won. And, as the wine or 
beer begins to warm the breasts of the hardy warriors 
who listen to his lay, they feel the spirit of war rise with- 
in them, and in fancy they fight their battles over again. 
Then they talk of their deeds of prowess, of their hair- 
breadth escapes; they laugh over their cruelties; they 
rejoice in their wounds; for, to their thinking, he who 
had received no wounds kncAV not the glory of living. 
From the life we have traced, we can infer the kind of 

^ Miiller, SagabibliotheJc, ii., Saga Yolsungs, 

2 Kerable, Anglo-Saxons^ vol. i., p. 357. 

^ " They had neither green crops nor cultivated fruits. The white 
crop alone engaged their attention." Guest, Transactions Philological 
Society^ May 7, 1852, vol. v., no. 122. A scholarly and valuable 
paper. 

^ Exeter Book ^ ]). Z14:. 



LANGUAGE AND POETRY. 33 

poetry most in harmony with its sentiments. Let us 
examine the pieces that have escaped the ravages of 
time. 

VI. — Language and Poetey. 

But first a word upon the language. It is the same 
in which we now write. If it sounds differently, if it 
requires a special study to understand it, it is because 
English is a living language, and has received new 
modes of expression, changed the pronunciation of old 
words, and, in consequence, "their spelling ; for it has 
followed the law of language laid down by Max Miiller, 
in its twofold phase of phonetic decay and dialectical 
regeneration.^ But Lappenberg tells us that, of the old 
language, " about a fifth only is to be pronounced obso- 
lete in the present English." ^ In its use of particles 
the Old English resembled the Greek. ^ It also had, like 
the same language, a certain facility of making new 
compounds. This facility it has mostly lost. It seems 
to have been transferred to its sister dialect, the Ger- 
man. The Old English mind possessed but a small 
share of philosophic acuteness. It saw the surface well 
enough, and what it saw it expressed without circumlo- 
cution. Language, in a more civilized condition of life, 
seeks to veil certain ideas in less offensive words. There 
is no attempt of this kind among the Old English. They 
speak as they think ; and they think in the concrete. 
There are no abstractions, no generalizations, no meta- 
physical terminologies. Every word is uttered with an 
individualizing force. It stands for a thing. There is 

' Science of Language^ vol. i., p. 51. 

2 England under (lie Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. ii., p. 306. 

2 We find traces of a dual form, as in the Greek and Sanskrit, in 
the pronouns ggt, ye two, gen. incer, dat. ac. iuc, you two ; and wgtj 
gen. uncer, dat. ac. unc, we two. 



34 THE CONTINENTAL HOMESTEAD. 

a certain bluntness about the language. It has no power 
of insinuation ; it is not the language of address ; it 
would never have become the vehicle of diplomacy. It 
moves in a narrow circle of thought. The material, the 
finite, the tangible, it has words for ; the spiritual it 
can only approximate in the expression of. Such a 
mind, using such a language, will not be prolific in 
works of a philosophical character. It will make reflex 
acts with difficulty ; it will not adequately express the 
sentiments of the heart. It will, properly enough, 
express emotion, courage, the impulses of nature, ac- 
tion. 

1. -We possess four precious relics of those Old Eng- 
lish days that give us glimpses of the literary spirit of 
the people who then lived. It has already been seen 
that no festival was complete without the gleeman and 
his harp. He traveled far and wide. He was every- 
where received with consideration. And one gleeman, 
who calls himself Widsith {cir. 370), after passing 
through various lands, returned to his home and settled 
down upon his paternal estates. There he recorded his 
experience, told where he was, and how he was received, 
together with his friend Scilling. It is thus we possess 
The Scop, or Gleeman'' s Tale. ^ The author was well liked. 
Often had he received a memorable present.^ " And," 
he says, " I was with Eormanric a whole season. The 
king of the Goths well cared for me. He — chief of the 
burgh-dwellers — gave me a ring for which six hundred 
sceats of gold were scored, by shillings reckoned ; and 
this I gave to Eadgils — my beloved — when I came 
home, to repay my friend — prince of the Myrgings — for 

^ Anglo-Saxon Poems of Beowulf, TJie Scop, or Gleeman's Sonff, 
and The Fight at Finneshurgh: Ed. B. Thorpe, London, 1875. 
2 The Scop, ii., 6, 7. 



LANGUAGE AND POETRY. 35 

as mucli as he gave me land, my father's heritage. And 
another ring gave Ealhhild — noble queen of lords, Ead- 
"wine's daughter — and her praise I spread through 
many lands, and told in song, where under heaven I 
knew a most excellent gold-adorned queen, gifts dis- 
pensing." ^ Thus did he extend the praises of his bene- 
factors. His choicest words were for those who were 
most generous. He takes pride in telling us that when 
to the harp his voice resounded, many high-born men, 
who well knew, said they had never heard better song.^ 
Finally, he concludes with a burst of praise upon the 
standing of the bard with every generous prince : 

" Thus North and South, where'er they roam, 
The sons of song still find a home, 
Speak unreproved their wants, and raise 
Their grateful lay of thanks and praise ; 
For still the chief, who seeks to grace 
By fairest fame his pride of place, 
Withholds not from the sacred Bard 
His well-earned praise and high reward ; 
But free of hand, and large of soul, 
Where'er extends his wide control, 
Unnumbered gifts his princely love proclaim, 
Unnumbered voices raise to heaven his princely name." ^ 

2. Another poem of pre-insular date is the Ziament 
of Deor. Deor is a gleeraan or scald of the Heoden- 
ings * who lost his retainership. A rival was given his 
place. The poet consoles himself in this poem. Others 
suffered misfortunes and survived them, and why may 
not he ? This is the burden of his song. He was dis- 

^ Ihid., 177-206. « Ibid,, 207, et seq. 

^ Conybeare's translation in Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon Poetry. 
* The Heodenings are the Hegelings of the German epos of Gudrun. 
Ten Brink, Uarhj English Literature, p. 60. 



S6 



THE COXTINENTAL HOMESTEAD, 



posed to look upon the bright side of life. He was 
moreover, an independent character. He evidently 
would not scruple to say disagreeable things. And no 
doubt it was the asserting of his independence of 
spirit, and the expression of some offensive remarks, 
that led his chief to put another in his place. He is 
silent about the cause. Were chief or rival in fault we 
would hear it. However, his poem is remarkable as the 
only one in regular strophic cast that has survived in 
Old English literature, though many other such there 
must have been. For this reason, we give our extracts 
from it in the original, with Thorpe's literal version : 



"Weland him be wurman 

Wraeces cunnade, 

Anhydig eorl 

Earfotha dreag, 

Haefde him to gesiththe 

Sorge and longath, 

Winter-cealde wra^ce, 

Wean oft onfond, 

Sitlithan hine Nithhad on 

N"ede legde, 

Swonore seono bende, 

OnsyUan mon. 

Thaes ofereode, 
TMsses swa maeg. 



Weland in himself the worm 
Of exile proved, 
The firm-souled chief 
Hardships endured, 
Had for his company 
Sorrow and weariness, 
Winter-cold exile, 
Affliction often suffered, 
When that on him Nithhad 
Constraint had laid, 
With a tough sinew-band, 
Til' unhappy man. 

That he surmounted, 

So may I this. 



We thaet Maethhilde 
Monge gefriignon: 
Wurdon grundlease 
Geates frige, 
The hi seo sorg-lufu 
Slaep ealle binom. 
Thaes ofereode, 
Thisses swa maeg. 



That of Maethhilde we 

May have heard : 

Were unreasonable 

Geat's courtships. 

So that from him hapless love 

All sleep took. 

That he surmounted. 

So may I this. 



LANGUAGE AND POETRr. 37 

We geascodan We have heard tell 

Eormanrices Of Eormunric's 

Wylfenne gethoht ; Wolf -like soul ; 

Ahte wide folc He owned the ample nation 

Gotena rices Of the Goth's realm ; 

Tha waes grim cyning That was a fierce king. 

Sset secg monig Sat many a warrior 

Sorgum gebunden With sorrow bound, 

Wean on wenan Calamity in expectation; 

Wyscte genahhe "Wished enough 

Tha thses cyne-rices That of that kingdom 

Ofer cumen wsore. There were an end. 

Thajs ofereode That he surmounted, 

Thisses swa moeg.^ So may I this. 

The poem has allusions to mythic personages, like 
TV eland, or historic beings living in the dim past, like 
Maethhilde. Eormanric we have found amono^ the 
friends of the gleeman Widsith. And now let us 
glance at the themes sung by these poets. Here is one : 

3. A very ancient fragment of Continental song 
among the Old English is The Fight at Finneshurgh.^ 
Hnaef and Hengist, with sixty followers, are assigned a 
hall in the home of Finn, who pledges himself not to 
molest them. But the spirit of clan and craft triumphs 
over the laws of hospitality ; Finn violates his pledge, 
and during the night surprises Hnaef : 

" Sweetly sang the birds of night, 

The wakeful cricket chirruped loud ; 

And now the moon, serenely bright. 
Was seen beneath the wandering cloud, 

Then roused him swift the deadly foe, 

To deeds of slaughter and of woe. 

* Exder Book, p. 377. 

^ Text: Grein, Bihliothek der Angclsdchsischen Poesic, b. i., pp. 
341-343. 



38 THE CONTINENTAL HOMESTEAD. 

"Now, beneath the javelin's stroke, 

The buckler's massy circle rung. 
Anon the chains of slumber broke : 

That chieftain great and good, 
He whose high praise fills every tongue, 

First in valor as in blood, 
The matchless Hengist to the battle woke." * 

Hengist notices the torches and cries to his followers : 
" Awake, my warriors ! hold your ground ; be mind- 
ful of valor ; fight in the van ; fiight as one man ! " ^ 
Each encourages the other. In this fragment we have 
none of those encouraging sj)eeches, but in two leaves 
of Waldere, a cycle of the eighth century, treating of 
the deeds of King Theodoric and his men, lately dis- 
covered by Mr. George Stephens, of Copeuhagen, we 
find such a speech between two friends in fight : "^tla's 
van-warrior ! let not thy courage fail thee to-day, for 
the day is come when thou art doomed to lose thy life, 
or thou long shalt have power among men. O ^If here's 
son ! may I never say, my friend, that I saw thee at the 
sword-play, through fear of any man, decline the com- 
bat, or flee to fortress thy body to defend, although 
many foes thy mail-shirt hew with bills, but rather 
that thou sought to fight beyond the limits of valor." ^ 
Many such speeches must have occurred in the former 
spirited poem. As it stands it simply describes the 
fight: 

" Through hall did sound the din of slaughter-stroke, 
The shield they could not grasp — the bone-helm lacked, 
The floor resounded till fell Garulf dead, 
Though not alone — fell also many foes ; 

* Conybeare's translation, p. 179. ^ 11. 18, et seq. 

2 See Grein : Beowulf ncbst den Fragmenten Finnsburg und Valdere. 



LANGUAGE AND POETRY. 39 

The raven wheeled above, swart, sallow-brown ; 
The sword-gleam flashed." 

They fought five days. Never heard the poet that 
sixty conquering heroes behaved so well. Never did 
song requite as Hnaef requited his young warriors : 

" Then sought the vanquished train relief, 
And safety for their wounded chief." 

The Fight at Finneshurgh was a special favorite 
with the Old English. When great rejoicings fill the 
hall of Hrothgar, after Beowulf has killed the fell 
monster, Grendel, no more popular song can be sung 
for the occasion than that of Finnesburgh. But who 
is Beowulf ? 

4. The grandest monument of Old English poetry 
we possess is the poem of Beowulf} It is an epic dic- 
tated by the feelings and thoughts of " the days of yore." 
Those were times when personality was all ; the hero 
counted for everything. There were no systems ; no 
institutions for leveling up or leveling down the mass- 
es ; no theory of equality ; no scientific, religious, or 
literary proselytism. Personal energy was the lever 
upon which men raised themselves above their compan- 
ions ; and that energy was all exercised in the direction 
of skill in war and the performance of feats of valor and 
prowess. A hero according to the Old English heart is 
Beowulf. Hrothgar builds a hall — of halls the greatest 
— and gives it the name of Heorot. Therein are held 
feastings and rejoicings ; the gleeman sings ; treasures 
are dispensed and presents made. But a grim and 

' Text : T. Arnold, Beowulf^ a Heroic Poem of the Eighth Century^ 
London, 1876 ; B. Thorpe, Anglo-Saxon Poems of Beowulf etc., Lon- 
don, 1875. 



40 THE CONTINENTAL EOMESTEAD. 

greedy being wlio haunts the moors, the fen and fast- 
ness, is envious of such joy. He is called Grendel. He 
enters the hall when the earls have retired to rest ; 
rugged and fierce, he takes thirty of their number ; and 
in his prey exulting goes to his home. Then was there 
much sorrow in Heorot. During twelve winters' tide 
did Hrothgar endure the frequent incursions of this foul 
fiend, till his land was despoiled of its best men, and 
empty stood the greatest of houses. Then was it noised 
abroad how Grendel waged war against this good prince 
and made havoc in his peaceful dominions. It came to 
the ears of Beowulf. He sets out with his companions 
to conquer the fiend. He is received with great rejoic- 
ings by Hrothgar and his queen. Kight comes and the 
men seek their beds. When all is still, Grendel arrives. 
There had arisen in him hope of a dainty glut. And 
first he takes a sleeping warrior, bites his bone-casings 
— his skin and flesh — drinks his blood ; and having de- 
voured him feet and hands, he takes hold of Beowulf. 
But soon he discovers that he has never encountered a 
stronger hand-grip ; he grows sore afraid, and would 
fain return to his haunt ; but the hero holds him : 

" These warders strong waxed wrathful, fiercer grew, 
The hall resounded ; wonder much there was 
That it so well withstood the warring beasts — 

• That fell not to the earth this fair land-house. 

And then arose strange sound ; upon the Danes 
Dire terror stood, of all who heard the whoop — 
The horrid lay of God's denier, 
The song that sang defeat and pain bewailed — 
Heirs captive's lay — for in his grasp too iirm 
Did he, of men tlie strongest, hold his prey." * 

^Beoivulf, xi., 1543-1585. 



LANGUAGE AND POETRY, 41 

The noise arouses the men ; they take their swords ; 
but no weapon has effect upon this monster. Still in 
his efforts to get away his sinews spring asunder ; the 
bone-casings burst ; he leaves his hand, and death-sick 
flees to his joyless dwelling ; for he knows that his 
days are numbered. Next day were great rejoicings 
in Heorot. Thus ends the first encounter of Beo- 
wulf. 

We learn nothing of the shape, or size, or nature of 
this mysterious being. That is one of the characteris- 
tics of the Old English mind — and one it shares in com- 
mon with all the Teutonic tribes — that it delights in 
the mysterious, the undefined, the horrible. In this 
respect it contrasts with the Greek intellect. Only the 
sensuous, the palpable, the thing of definite form and 
beauty, has for it any attraction. Its education is a 
constant struggle to bridge over all mystery, to cover 
all deformity, to give everything a name of good omen, 
to see but the sunshine of life. Homer describes Mene- 
laus as wounded. He forgets the pain and anguish to 
compare the limbs of Menelaus, stained with gore, to 
the ivory tinged with purple. The image is too much 
in accordance with his thoughts to drop it immediately ; 
he tells how the Carian woman lets it lie in her cham- 
ber, an object of desire to many a charioteer ; but it is 
intended as an ornament for the king alone, a decora- 
tion to the steed and a glory to the rider. ^ The Greek 
did not live in a land of mist and fog, of marsh and fen 
and dense forest. He had the sunshine in all its bril- 
liancy ; he had a bright atmosphere and clear-cut land- 
scape ; therefore his eye was educated to color. With 
the Old English it was different. In JBeoicidf, the man, 
the monster, the deed performed are all before us ; but 
^ Iliad, ii., 140, et scq. 



42 THE CONTINENTAL IIOMESTIAD. 

the distinct coloring, the picturesque detail, had no 
existence, even in the mind of the poet. 

The labors of Beowulf are not yet ended. Grendel 
has a monster-mother, who is bound to be revenged. 
This is a repetition of the northern conception of " the 
devil and his dam." She comes the night following 
and bears away the king's chief counselor. In sorrow 
the king, his retainers, and Beowulf go to the pool 
which they know to be her residence. The flood boiled 
with blood ; the folk surveyed the hot gore ; the horn 
sang a death-song. Beowulf plunges in ; the ocean 
surge received the battle warrior ; it was a day's space 
ere he could perceive the ground-plain. Forthwith the 
she-monster descried him, seized him in her horrid 
clutches, and to her dwelling bore the prince of rings. 
He aimed a powerful stroke at her with his war-bill, so 
that on her head the sword sang a horrid war-song. Then 
found he that the war-beam would not bite, and in sore 
straits was he ; but trusting in his strength he drags 
the fiend to the floor ; again she overthrows him ; but 
rescuing himself from her, he perceives an old Eotenish 
sword, the pride of warriors, the work of giants. This 
he wields and angrily strikes, so that it grips her neck, 
breaks her bone-rings, and passes through her fated body. 
On the ground she sank. Beowulf was once more tri- 
umphant. Heorot was again secure. Joy reigned ; the 
gleeman's song was heard ; the bowl went round ; pres- 
ents wete dispensed. 

Here the poem naturally ends. But the poet con- 
nects with the name of Beowulf another epic cycle as 
old as the Aryan race. It is that of the dragon. It is 
found in Grecian and Roman as well as in Teutonic 
sagas. ^ It is especially an English favorite. We have 

' The golden fleece is guarded by. dragons. A dragon brood kill 



LAXGUAGi: AND POETRY. 43 

here one form of it ; but a form more popular still will 
be that known as St. George and the dragon. Into the 
present version the poet weaves contemporary and his- 
torical allusions and occurrences.^ But the portions 
treating of the dragon's depredations and his slaying are 
remnants of the older saga. For three hundred years 
had the dragon guarded his treasures unmolested. At 
last they are discovered and some of them stolen. The 
hoard-ward's wrath is aroused. No longer would he 
abide within his mound ; but forth he sallied, burning 
all before him. Nothing living would the hostile air- 
flier leave in his hate to men.'^ The land-dwellers he 
enveloped in fire and burning. Beowulf resolves to de- 
stroy him single-handed. " The prince of rings disdained 
to seek the wide-flier with a numerous band ; he dread- 
ed not the conflict." ^ Arming himself, with a few 
trusty comrades he seeks the dragon's haunt : 

" Firm rose the stone -wrought vault, a living stream 
Burst from the barrow, red with ceaseless flame 
That torrent glowed ; nor lived there soul of man 
Might tempt the dread abyss, nor feel its rage. 
So watched the fire-drake o'er his hoard — and now 
Deep from his laboring breast the indignant Goth 
Gave utterance to the war-cry. Loud and clear 
Beneath the hoar stone rung the deafening sound, 
And strife uprose : the watcher of the gold 
Had marked the voice of man. First from his lair, 
Shaking firm earth, and vomiting, as he strode, 
A foul and fiery blast, the monster came. 
Yet stood beneath the barrow's lofty side 

Oftnitt in the Heldenhuch. Martial compares a miser to a dragon 
guarding its hoard. (Lib. 12, ep. 45.) 

^ Cantos xxxiv., xxxv. This has misled Mr. T. Arnold and others 
as to the real antiquity of the poem. 

2 xxxiii., 1., 4620., Thorpe's edition. 3 468O. 

3 



44 THE CONTINENTAL HOMESTEAD. 

The Goth's unshaken champion, and opposed 
To that infuriate foe his full-orbed shield. 
Then the good war-king bared his trenchant blade : 
Tried was its edge of old, the stranger's dread, 
And keen to work the foul aggressor's woe. 

The kingly Goth 
Eeared high his hand, and smote the grisly foe, 
But the dark steel upon the unyielding mail 
Fell impotent, nor served its master's need 
Now at his utmost peril. Nor less that stroke 
To maddening mood the barrow's warder roused : 
Outburst the flame of strife, the blaze of war 
Beamed horribly; still no triumph won the Goth, 
Still failed his keen brand in the unequal fray. ... 
Again they met — again with freshened strength 
Forth from his breast the unconquered monster poured 
That pestilent breath. Encompassed by its flames, 
Sad jeopardy and new the chieftain held." * 

But with the assistance of Wiglaf, his trusty com- 
panion, he succeeds in killing the monster, and soon 
after dies of the poisoned wounds he has received. 
" No sound of harp shall the warrior awake ; but the 
dusky raven ready o'er the fallen shall speak many 
things — to the eagle shall tell how he fared at his food 
while with the wolf he spoiled the slain." ^ Such is the 
lament made over the dead hero. 

The version of this poem now known is not that 
sung on the seashore and in the primeval forests of the 
Continental homestead. It is a more modern version. 
The unknown bard that wrote it was a Christian. None 
other could have spoken of Cain ; none other would have 
called the people heathens ; none other would have said 

^ CouTbeare's translation, Rlustrations of Anglo-Saxon Poetry^ 
p. 69. 2 xli.^ 6041. 



LANGUAGE AND I'OETEY. 45 

that they knew not the Creator.^ He was in all proba- 
bility a monk. No one else could scarcely attempt to 
preach after this fashion : "Woe to him who shall 
through cruel malice thrust a soul into the fire's em- 
brace ; let him not look for comfort."^ No one else 
would lay down so nicely the doctrine of repentance as 
he does in these words : "It was no longer than one 
night when he committed more murders, and mourned 
not for his enmity and crime ; he was too confirmed in 
them." ^ He also has glimpses of true poetry : here is a 
genuine beam : 

"When sorrow on him came, and pain befell, 
He left the joy of men and chose GocVs lights * 

But who this poet-soul was, we know not ; when he 
lived we can only conjecture. That he wrote this ver- 
sion of JSeoiculf after Cedmon ^ had sung of the crea- 
tion is certain ; for to his poem he alludes in unmis- 
takable language when he represents the gleeman sing- 
ing of the origin of things : how the Almighty wrought 
the earth ; how he set the sun and moon to give light 
to those dwelling on land ; how he created plant and 
animal.® There are many theories concerning the poem. 
Thorpe considers it " a metrical paraphrase of an heroic 
saga, composed in the southwest of Sweden, in the old 
common language of the North, and probably brought 
to this country during the sway of the Danish dynasty.' 
Haigh rejects Thorpe's view, considers the poem en- 

^ Beowulf ii., 360, et seq. 

3ii., 273-5. 

* He tlaa mid thaere sorge ; tha him sio sar belamp, 

gum-dredm ofgeaf; Godes leoht cjeceds. — xxxv., 4928-32. 
6 A. D. 670. e I., 180-198. ' Beowulf, Preface, ix. 



40 THE CONTIXENTAL HOMESTEAD. 

tirely English, both, in scenes, incidents, and personages, 
and believes it to have been composed in England.* 
Henry Morley is disposed to follow him. He says he is 
almost tempted to make Bowlby Cliff the ness on 
which Beowulf was buried ; " Bowlby then being read 
as the corrupted form of Beowulf es-by." ^ Kemble was 
at first inclined to regard the poem as historical, and so 
expressed himself in the preface to the text w^hich he 
published in 1833. But in the preface to his transla- 
tion issued in 1837, he announced an entirely new the- 
ory. With Grimm, he regards it as mythic. He finds 
that the old Saxons called their harvest-month Beo or 
Bewod, after the god of fertility. This god he identi- 
fies with Beowulf. The poem will not bear out the sup- 
position. It deals with historical personages. Some of 
them can be identified with well-known records. Thus, 
Hygelac is spoken of by Gregory of Tours, under the 
Frankish form of Chochilaic, just as Hiilfreich is called 
Chilperic.^ According to Thorkelin, Beowulf was a liv- 
ing personage also. He assigns, upon authority other 
than his own, the year of his death as a. d. 340. Now, 
the name of Beowulf must have been popular in song 
and story ; and as it receded in the past, to the deeds 
of valor of which its bearer was the author were added 
others of a marvelous and mysterious character. Tra- 
ditions of time immemorial were strung upon it ; these 
were sung in the old homestead ; they were remembered 

^ The Anglo-Saxon Suffcis. This is also the opinion of Mr. T. 
Arnold. He considers it a West-Saxoii poem of the eighth cen- 
tury. 

2 A First Sketch of English Literature, p. 14. 

^ His gestis Dani cum rege suo, nomine Chochilaicho, evectu navali 
per mare Gallias appetunt. HI., 8. It may be remarked with Ett- 
miiller that all the Northern pirates were sometimes called Danes. See 
Thorpe, Int., xxv. 



pniLOSOPHY. 47 

in the new ; but the scenes of the ancestral home be- 
coming effaced from memory, men sought in the new 
country to give them " a local habitation and a name." 
Never seeing the ness upon which the hero was buried, 
and a mound erected to his honor, they are only fol- 
lowing their instincts in designating a place to which 
they transfer the interest vested in the old scenes. As 
the poem passes down from mouth to mouth, the de- 
scriptions become changed to suit the newly designated 
places. Such, in our opinion, was the fate of Beowulf. 
When the Danish dynasty held sway, such a poem was 
calculated to be recited with renewed interest, and at this 
time we conceive it to have received its present form.^ 

In the poem of Beowulf, especially in those parts of 
it savoring of the old Continental homestead, we find 
an absence of a spiritual and a spiritualizing ideal. 
Physical prowess is personified in the hero. The peo- 
ple are hero-worshipers. The assistance of God al- 
luded to is an afterthought improvised by the Christian 
poet. No visible intervention of supernatural powers 
fills the narrative, as in Homer ; no sentiment of chiv- 
alry or love ; but the seeking of a mere selfish glory. 
Brute force is the ideal ; Beowulf is the war-beast. It 
is the poem of a people living to war, glorying in bat- 
tle, and dying to renew their fights and repeat their 
deeds of valor within the halls of Valhalla. 

VII. — Philosophy. 

Such is the literature of the Old English. And 
now we come to their philosophy. Let it not be said 
that they possessed none. There is no people without 
a philosophy, for all have reason, and all ask the why 

' Thorpe considers the only MS. extant (MS. Cott. Vitellius, A. 15), 
" to be of the first half of the eleveatb century." — Beovoulj\ Preface, xi. 



48 THE CONTINENTAL HOMESTEAD. 

and wherefore of things. Whence came I ? who made 
this earth ? these stars ? the seasons ? the heat and the 
cold? the winds and the rain, and the refreshing 
springs and cooling streams ? These are questions that 
occur to the most primitive people. And sometimes 
they even reflect on the more difiicult issues of life and 
death. They ask : Why am I here ? what is the mo- 
tive of life ? who guides, directs the actions of men ? 
Are they the result of chance, or is there order in 
events ? The Old English reflected on all these ques- 
tions, and had their answers for them. Their sagas, 
and still more their mythology, are so many efforts to 
solve these ever-recurring thoughts. They themselves 
may not have suggested the solutions ; in all probability 
they did not ; from other and more distant sources did 
they come. They are to be found in the Scandinavian 
mythology of the Edda. Composed by a people who 
abandoned their country and sought in the cold regions 
of Iceland a home in which they might cling to their 
traditions and their gods, this book is the one certain 
source whence we can draw their solutions of the 
world-riddle. It was the common inheritance of the 
Angle and the Saxon as well as of the Norwegian. 
Malte Brun recognizes the fact, but accounts for it by 
supposing that the Scandinavians are descended " from 
a primitive race, indigenous to the countries which it 
still inhabits"; ^ and that it was this primitive race that 
peopled the South from the North. The truth is the 
reverse of this. The first migrations were northward. 
Those from the North in after-ages were a reaction and 
a compensation of the primitive migrations. We dis- 
tinguish two of them. The oldest has left its traces in 
the traditions of giants and dwarfs, of magical influ- 
1 Geography, vol. iii., bk7 cxlvii., p. 1038. 



PHILOSOPHY. 49 

ence and communication with evil spirits. The later is 
that distinctly recorded by Snorri Sturleson in the Prose 
Edda. While the local coloring and specific naming 
are his, the tradition is substantially that believed by 
his forefathers. He tells us : " Othin had spaedom, and 
so also his wife ; and from this knowledge found he out 
that his name would be held high in the north part of 
the world, and worshiped beyond all kings ; for this 
sake was he eager to go on his way from Tyrkland. 
. . . But whithersoever they fared over the land, 
much fame was said of them, so that they were thought 
to be liker gods than men, and they stayed not their 
faring till they came northward into that land that is 
now called Saxland ; ^ there dwelt Othin a long time, 
and had that land far and wide for his own. . . . 
These Asa took to them wives there within the land, 
but some for their sons, and these races waxed full 
many ; so that about Saxland, and all thence about the 
north country they spread, so that the tongue of the 
Asiamen was the true tongue over all these lands ; and 
men deem from the way that the names of these fore- 
fathers are written, that these names have belonged to 
thia tongue, and the Asa brought the tongue hither into 
the north country : into Norway, into Svithiod, into 
Denmark, and into Saxland. . . ." ^ One fact under- 
lies this remarkable passage, and it is all we are con- 
cerned with at present, that the mythology of the ^sir 
was universal throughout the Teutonic nations. Let us 
see how they questioned and how they answered on the 
great problems of life, creation, and thought. 

^ The whole of Germany was frequently known by the old writers 
as Saxland. 

2 Foreword to the Edda. Translation of G. W. Dasent, pp. 109-111. 
Stockholm, 1842. 



50 THE CONTINENTAL HOMESTEAD. 

They contemplated the heavens and the earth, and 
they wished to account for their existence. This ques- 
tion they solved on the same principle on which the 
Chaldeans of old had solved it. The Chaldean found, 
in two primary elements, the igneus and the humid, the 
source of all things ; from their union did he conceive 
all things to spring.^ The Old English imagined all 
things also to spring from the union of heat and cold. 
We are told that from Niflheim,'^ the home of mist, 
issued cold, and from Muspellzheim, the home of fire, 
issued heat. The heat melted the ice; the drops formed 
thereby, through His power who sent forth the heat, 
received life, and a being, called Ymir, was produced. 
We are further told that while Ymir slept, offspring 
came forth from him.^ This account of the origin of 
man nearly coincides with the Hindu, which represents 
the various classes as si3ringing respectively from the 
heads, the arms, the thighs, and the feet of Brahma.* 
But there is a difference. Brahma is the Author of all 
things, while back of Ymir seems to be a Creator. In 
fact, Ymir is the primeval chaos. His other name is 

Aurgelmir.^ 

" When Ymir lived 
Was sand, nor sea, 
Nor cooling wave ; 
No earth was found, 
Nor heaven above ; 
One chaos all, 
And nowhere grass." ® 

* Lenormaut, Legend of Semiramis, p. 62. 
^ Nefl — vecpiXf] — nebula. 

3 Thorpe, Northern Mythology ^ vol. i., p. 3. 

* Manavadharmasastra. 

^ Aur — matter, mud, clay. 
^ Voluspd. 



PHILOSOPHY. 51 

So we are further told that Bor's sons, having slain 
Ymir, carried his body to Ginnunga-gap — the yawning 
gap or the abyss of pure space — and formed of it the 
earth; of his blood they made the sea and fresh waters; 
of his bones the mountains ; of his teeth and grinders 
and those bones that were broken, they made stones and 
pebbles ; in the great impassable ocean, formed of the 
blood that flowed from his wounds, they set the earth 
around which it circles ; of his skull they formed the 
heavens, which they set up over the earth with four 
regions, and under each corner placed a dwarf, the 
names of whom were Austri, Yestri, I^orthri, and 
Southri — the four points of the compass ; of his brain 
they formed the heavy clouds ; of his hair the vege- 
table creation ; and of his eyebrows a wall of defense 
against the giants ; this they placed round Midgard, the 
midmost part of the earth, the dwelling-place of the 
sons of men/ In this manner, the saga goes on to say 
how sun and moon and stars received their proper 
places in Nature, and how the days and the years came 
to be reckoned. In this first lisping of philosophy the 
problems of time and space are considered. The heav- 
enly origin of things is kept in view ; knowledge comes 
from above. But there is a principle of evil in things 
of earth ; for Ymir, the shapeless mass out of whom 
hill and dale, river and ocean were framed, " was evil, 
together with all his race." ^ And this evil race dwelt 
in Jotenheim. They were giants and the sworn ene- 
mies of the JEsir. When Ymir was killed all the 
giants were drowned, save Bergelinir and his wife, who 
escaped in a chest, and thus continued the hateful race. 

' Vdluspd ; see also Thorpe, Ncrthcrn Mythology^ vol. i., p. 5. 
* Thorpe, NoHhcrn Mythology^ p. 3. 



52 THE CONTINENTAL IIOMEHTEAD. 

Is tliere not here a clear reminiscence of the Deluge re- 
corded in the Bible ? 

And there is another fact recorded in that Book 
which was not forgotten by these peoples of the North. 
We are told therein that in the garden of Paradise 
stood a certain tree on which depended the life and 
death, the happiness and misery, of the human race. 
In the mythology of the North is it also set down con- 
cerning a tree of life. It was called Yggdrasil. It was 
*' a stately tree, with white dust strewed : thence came 
the dews that wet the dales ; it stands, ever green, over 
Urda's well." * Beneath the roots of the Yggdrasil, by 
the well of Urd, there stands a fair hall, whence go 
forth three maidens, Urd, Verdandi, and Skuld. They 
are called Norns. They engrave on the tablet of time ; 
they determine the lives of men ; they fix their destinies. 
In modern language these maidens are known as Past, 
Present, and Future. They are the molders of man's 
destiny. Life itself is ever green, ever fresh, ever flow- 
ing ; but time is all the same, determining each individu- 
al's course. This idea of a fate influencing men, decree- 
ing their deaths, and shaping their lives, was deeply im- 
planted in the Teutonic mind. There are the Yalkyriur. 
They are ever in attendance upon Odin. Prior to a 
battle they come from afar to sway the victory '^ and 
choose those who are to fall and dwell in Yalhalla. In 
the myth of Frey and Gerd, Skimen sings : " My life 
was decreed to one day only, and my days are deter- 
mined by fate." ^ The Christian poet who revised the 
poem of Beowulf was not able to rid himself of this 
philosophy as well as he did of the mention of the hea- 
then gods. Thus, the hero says : Fate goes ever as it 

^ Saemunda's Edda, Voluspd. 2 Voluspd. 

2 Thorpe, Northern Mytliology^ vol. i., p. 4*7. 



PHILOSOPHY. 53 

must — gaeth a wyrd siod hid sceaV But already it is 
coupled in the poet's mind with, the idea of diref ulness ; 
he speaks of it as a grim power — cjebsceaf grimne!^ His 
ancestors would not have so qualified it. For them it 
possessed nothing grim or dreadful. Death in fight 
was their joy and the ideal termination of life. Old 
age was not a coveted boon : 

" The coward thinks to live for ever, 
If he avoid the weapon's reach ; 
But age, which overtakes at last, 
Twines his gray hair with pain and shame." ^ 

The growth of plant and animal was another prob- 
lem contemplated by these peoples. Everything living 
and active was endowed with a personality. Nicors 
inhabited the running stream. Tree and plant were the 
dwelling of the genius that made them grow. Nature 
T7as a vast laboratory in which inert matter was trans- 
formed into vegetable and animal life by a personal 
being. Dwarfs were the instruments by which many 
changes were brought about. They had charge of the 
gold and precious stones concealed in the bowels of the 
earth. The echoes in the mountains were the. answers 
of the dwarfs.* The creation of man these peoples con- 
ceived to have been the work of three of their gods. 
The saga tells us that Odin, Hscnir, and Lodur, meeting 
the ash and the elm, changed the one into a man and 

^ Beowulf, vi., 915. 

' xviii., 2472. 

3 Saemunda's Edda, Hava Mai, tr. W, Taylor. So, too, Beovmlf 
xxi., 2781-3. 

* Grimm, Deulsch. Myth., 421, 0. N. Dvergmal. So, rock-crystal was 
known as dwarf-stone, dvcerg sten, and in Denmark certain stones are 
still called dwarf-hammers. See Thorpe, Northern Mythology, vol. i., p. 8. 



54 THE CONTINENTAL HOMESTEAD. 

the other into a woman. And Odin gave them soul ; 
Ha3nir, mind ; Lodur, blood. The ash is henceforth 
known as the life-tree.^ Thus did these simple peoples 
distinguish between the material and spiritual elements 
in man, although they never defined what was matter 
and what spirit. Indeed, in spite of the distinction in 
their mythology, their thoughts became too materialized. 
But there is one passage in Beoioulf which has the ring 
of an Old English idea. It asserts the supremacy of the 
understanding. It is a remarkable expression ; for it 
is one of the very few that anywhere assert the supe- 
riority of spirit over matter. " Understanding, delib- 
eration, forethought of mind," says Beowulf, " is every- 
where best." ^ This is a thought as old as the Aryan 
family. In a Hindu book, purporting to give good 
advice in the guise of fables, it is asserted that knowl- 
edge is the fountain-head of all happiness, and by a 
most illogical process is it shown to be so : " Knowl- 
edge gives good behavior ; from good behavior one 
attains worthiness ; from being worthy one gets to 
be wealthy ; from wealth one reaches religious merit, 
afterward happiness."^ The ideas in both are of a 
piece with the thoroughly English maxim, " Knowledge 
is power." That in j&eoiow^/' reveals the germ of mod- 
ern English philosophy. The human understanding 
is the one theme it seems to have fathomed, from the 
problem of knowing discussed by Locke, to that of the 
unknowable treated by Herbert Spencer. And that 
problem, when made the exclusive one of philosophy 

^ Cvoicheam. See " A spell to promote the fertility of land," from 
MS. Cott. Caligula, A. 7, printed in Rask's A. S. Grammar, p. 148. 

2 xvi., 2123-5. 

^ Vidya dadati vinayam vinay^ty^ti patratatam patratvaddhanam- 
apnoti dhanaddhannam tatah sukham." — Hitopadesa^ b. i., 6. 



pniLOSOPHY. 55 

and identified with it, has only the same outcome it 
has had with the Hindu mind ; it will end in Nirvana ; 
it will make nihilism the last word of English philos- 
ophy. 

The question of good and evil was a puzzling one 
for the Old Enojlish mind. It recoornized the one and 
the other. There never was a nation without primary 
ideas of right and wrong ; but the explanation that 
each people gives varies. To the Teuton, when men 
were first formed they were happy. But the frost- 
giants came among them and taught them evil. One 
especially, called Gullveig,^ spread avarice and the love 
of gain among them : and though she was thrice burned, 
she arose as often from hei' ashes, and she still lives. 
She was the first to cause human blood to flow, and the 
saga tells us that it is because of her decree that it still 
flows. The suffering of the good and innocent was also 
a difficult problem for these peoples. Life was not to 
them what it is to the Christian, a period of probation 
and meriting ; it therefore never entered their minds 
that misery might be a boon. They cut the Gordian 
knot by saying that some men fell under the influence 
of good spirits, and some of evil. Even among their 
gods they recognized one as actuated by wickedness. 
He was a spirit of craft and cunning. He was known 
as Loki, and was the source of innumerable annoyances 
to gods and men. Still he seemed to have made him- 
self a sort of necessity for them ; for when Thor loses 
his hammer, to Loki he goes to find it for him.'^ Phi- 
losophy was for the Northman made up of riddles. 
Odin undertakes to contend with Yafthrudni in learn- 
ing. He approaches him in disguise. Yafthrudni tells 
him : 

^ i. e., gold-matter. ^ Tlirynx's Quida. 



56 THE CONTINENTAL HOMESTEAD. 

"Know tliat to thy parting step 
Never shall these doors unfold, 
If thy tongue excel not mine 
In the strife of mystic lore." ^ 

It is a matter of life or death to answer his ques- 
tions. Thus is knowledge a prize to be struggled for ; 
if needs be, to die for. 

Such is the people we have attempted to describe ; 
we have dived into its thoughts ; we have measured 
the beatings of its heart ; we have seen how its days 
were passed in the mist-land of its Continental home- 
steads ; we have contemplated the germs of important 
modern institutions, but we have noticed very few in- 
dications of the great irresistible nation which was in 
after-times to play such a conspicuous part in mold- 
ing the civilizations of Europe and America. But who 
sees the hero in the infant child ? Still, this child, un- 
der Keltic, Roman, and Christian influences, will wax 
strong. It will learn new ideas and new modes of life. 
New sentiments and aptitudes will be infused into it. 
Let us watch its growth under the fostering care of 

each influence. 

^ VafihrudnVs mal. 



CHAPTER II. 

KELTIC INFLUENCE. 
I. — Kelt and Teuton. 

Both Kelt and Teuton started from the same Aryan 
homestead. They had the same stock of ideas, the 
same principle of action, the same manners and customs. 
They spoke the same language with very slight differ- 
ence. " A wonderful analogy," says Dr. Herman Ebel, 
speaking of the affinity of conjugations, " with the Teu- 
tonic and Slavonian is found to exist, which points to 
a most special connection of these languages, the result 
either of long-continued unity, or of a very special re- 
lationship of the mind of the peoples." ^ After centuries 
of separation these kindred peoples meet. They no 
longer recognize each other. Their forms of speech 
have diverged. So have their character and disposition. 
They have retained little in common beyond some laws 
and customs. 

The English, with their ideal of brute force and their 
superstitious natures, with their love for war and greed 

^ Celtic Studies, translated by W. K. Sullivan, § 14, p. 127. Dr. 
Sulivan says, speaking of Gaulish names, " Both Tri>h and German 
do and should explain them, for they must have been nearly identical 
a few centuries before the Christian era." — Introduction to O'Curri/^s 
Manners and Customs of tJie Ancient Irish, p. Ixxvii. 



58 KELTIC INFLUENCE. 

for plunder, came among their Keltic kinsmen. For 
centuries tliey had been slowly but effectively gaining a 
foothold in the island. As early as a. d. 289 we find Ca- 
rausius employing large bodies of Frankish mercenaries.^ 
In the fifth century their numbers became so great that 
the conflict was one of life or death. Then it is that the 
English settlement became a matter of history. But it 
1 is erroneous to think that the English ever drove all 
their Keltic kin into the mountains of Wales.^ Some 
they lived among on terms of equality ; others they 
subjugated and attached to the soil. But in the course 
of ages these latter regained their independence and 
amalgamated with their conquerors. AVith Keltic blood, 
Keltic genius and the Keltic spirit became infused. And 
this commingling of the two races is more widespread 
than is generally conceded or than either people is con- 
scious of. About forty years ago W. F. Edwards exam- 
ined the matter from a physiological standpoint, and 
came to the conclusion that there was a much larger 
Keltic element in the present English population than 
is indicated by names. " Attached to the soil," says 
he, speaking of the Britons, " they will have shared in 
that emancipation w^hich, during the course of the mid- 
dle ages, gradually restored to political life the mass of 
the population in the countries of Western Europe ; 
recovering by slow degrees their rights without resum- 

^ Ihkl.^ p. xlii. 

2 I am surprised to find so painstaking an historian as Mr. Green, 
in his delightful Short History of the English People^ admit this common 
but erroneous opinion. Creasy is of a different mind. In his English 
Constitution^ he states expressly that •' the British element was largely 
preserved in our nation." See also a very able paper in the Trans. 
Philological Society^ 1857, p. S9, On the Connection of the Keltic with 
the Teutonic Languages^ and especially with the Anglo-Saxon^ by the 
^ Rev. John Davies, M. A. 



KELT AND TEUTON. 59 

ing their name, and rising gradually with the rise of in- 
dustry, they will have got spread through all ranks of 
society. The gradualness of this movement, and the 
obscurity which enwrapped its beginnings, allowed the 
contempt of the conqueror and the shame of the con- 
quered to become fixed feelings ; and so it turns out 
that an Englishman, who noAV thinks himself sprung 
from the Saxons or Normans, is often in reality the 
descendant of the Britons." " Mr. Henry Morley studied 
the question from a purely literary point of view, and 
announces as the result of his investigation this some- 
what startling conclusion : " The Celts do not form an 
utterly distinct part of our mixed population. But for 
the early, frequent, and various contact with the race 
that in its half -barbarous days invented Oisin's dialogues 
with St. Patrick, and that quickened afterward the 
Northmen's blood in France, Germanic England would . 
not have produced a Shakespeare." ^ Mr. Matthew Ar- 
nold brought to bear upon the subject his trained criti- 
cal talent, and gives the result of his study in these 
words : " If I were asked where English poetry got these 
three things, its turn for style, its turn for melancholy, ^ 
and its turn for natural magic, for catching and render- 
ing the charm of nature in a wonderfully near and vivid 
way, I should answer with some doubt that it got much 
of its turn of style from a Celtic source ; with less 
doubt, that it got much of its melancholy from a Celtic 
source ; with no doubt at all, that from a Celtic source 
it got nearly all its natural magic." ^ Thus we find all 

^ Des Caracteres Phisiolog^giies des Races Humaincs consideres dans 
leurs Rapports avec VHistoire^ quoted in Matthew Arnold's Celtic Liter' 
aturc. 

^ Early English Writers, vol i., part i., p. 188. 

' Celtic Literature,^. \^^. 



QO KELTIC INFLUENCE. 

those who make a careful anatomy of English thought 
conclude that the Keltic element is a strong influencing 
agency in determining its present and past preeminence. 
Let us now see what there is in Keltic character and 
Keltic thought to exert this great influence. 

In character and disposition the Kelt differs from 
the Teuton. The Kelt is flighty and fickle ; the Teuton 
is sluggish in his movements, but steady and persevering. 
The nature of the one is more spiritual than that of the 
other. Its ideal is more elevated. It has greater sus- 
ceptibility for the beautiful and the sensuous.^ It lays 
stress upon color and form. Bright color and beautiful 
form delight it. The Teutonic nature looks more to 
the inner view of things. It is not dazzled by show. 
If it fights, it must be for something more tangible than 
mere honor or championship ; it must be for riches, or 
power, or conquest, or in defense of person and property. 
Not so the Keltic disposition. Its valor is for valor's 
sake. An opinion or a principle is sufficient reason in 
its sight to fight, and even to die for. The Kelt lacks 
the steadiness of the Teuton. He is impatient of labor. 
He would achieve results at a bound. He does not know 
how to plod. His is an emotional nature. It is easily 
elevated and as easily depressed. It has not seriousness 
enough. It is fond of excitement ; it glories in appear- 
ances. 

*' For acuteness and valor the Greeks ; '- 

For excessive pride the Eomans ; 

For dullness the creeping Saxons ; 

For 'beauty and love the GaedhilsP 

* Distinguish between the sensuous and the sensual. The sensual 
refers to that which is gross, material, carnal; the sensuous is that 
which appeals to the eye, or ear, as rhythm, harmony, color, form. It 
is in this sense Milton uses the word sensuous in his well-known de- 



KYMRIC KELT. 01 

So speaks an Irisli poem, forgetful that the persistency 
of " the creeping Saxon " is the source of his strength 
and the secret of his enduring power. 

II. — Kymeic Kelt. 

When the English and Welsh fought for mastery 
in the island of Britain, the latter were greatly disor- 
ganized. Centuries of struggles had exhausted them. 
Whatever tinge of Roman civilization they may have 
acquired, left among them no other trace than the story 
of Brutus, the grandson of JEneas. This was the sole 
legacy of pagan Rome. But they were a Christian 
people. They had their churches, their schools, and 
their priesthood. They were attached to Rome and 
its teachings. They recognized the Pope, and referred 
to him all their difficulties.^ In all other respects both 
clergy and people are greatly demoralized. Their pri- 
vate feuds they gratify at the expense of the public good. 
GiLDAs writes in the sixth century.'* His soul is grieved 

scription of poetry, in which he tells us it must be " simple, sensuous, 
and impassioned." 

^ Gildas, in his epistle (§ 6*7), complains of those who cross the seas 
urging their claims to church benefices. That document, first brought 
to light by Spelman, and printed in Wilkins's Concilia (vol. i., p. 28), 
in which Dinoth writes in Keltic to St. Augustine, that he acknowledges 
no other obedience "to him whom you call the Pope than that dic- 
tated by charity," is now regarded as a forgery. For an exposition of 
the reasons, see Dollinger's Church History — tr. Cox., vol. ii., pp. 61, 
G2. An ancient British or English Church, not in communion with 
Rome, is an historical myth. 

2 Works : Epistola de Ezcidio Britannice et CoMigatio Ecclcsiastici 
Ordlms. This was translated in 1638, under the title The Epistle of 
GUda!^^ the most ancient British author ; who flourished in the ycere of 
our Lord 546. And loho by his great erudition, sanciitie, and wisdome, 
acquired the name of Sapiens. Faithfully translated out of the originall 



62 KELTIC IXFLUEXCE. 

and indignant at the state of affairs. He conceals nothing. 
He tells his countrymen, individually and collectively, 
their failings : " It has always been a custom with our 
nation," he writes, "as it is at present, to be impotent 
in repelling foreign foes, but bold and invincible in 
raising civil war, and bearing the burden of their of- 
fenses ; they are impotent, I say, in following the 
standard of peace and truth, but bold in wickedness 
and falsehood."^ He leaves his unfortunate country, 
goes to Brittany, and settles in Yannes. Thence he 
flings his fierce invective against all orders of society. 
He draws a frightfully vivid picture of men in church 
and state. He boils with rage against Vortigern for 
asking the aid of " the fierce and impious Saxons, a race 
hateful both to God and man."^ His description of 
the ravages of this " wolfish offspring " glows Avith the 
glare of the fires they kindled : " The fire of vengeance, 
justly kindled by former crimes, spread from sea to sea, 
fed by the hands of our foes in the East, and did not 
cease, until, destroying the neighboring towns and lands, 
it reached the other side of the island, and dipped its 
red and savage tongue in the western ocean. . . . La- 
mentable to behold, in the midst of the streets lay the 
tops of lofty towers, tumbled to the ground, stones of 
high walls, holy altars, fragments of human bodies, 
covered with livid clots of coagulated blood, looking as 
if they had been squeezed together in a press, and with 
no chance of being buried, save in the ruins of the 

Latine. London^ 12»20, 1638. Another version, based upon this, is 
that of Dr. Giles, published in Bolm's Antiquarian Library, in the vol- 
ume entitled Six Old English Chronicles. St. Gildas, according to Geof- 
frey of Monmouth, translated the Molmutine Laws from the Keltic. 
{Hist Brii., lib. ii., cap. IV.) 

^ Epidola, § 21. ^ Rid, § 23. 



KYMRIC KELT. ^3 

houses, or in the ravening bellies of wild beasts and 
birds." * Even this language pales before the torrent of 
indignation that fills his soul as he contemplates the 
moral evils of his people : " Britain has kings, but they 
are tyrants ; she has judges, but unrighteous ones ; gen- 
erally engaged in plunder and rapine, but always prey- 
ing on the innocent ; whenever they exert themselves 
to avenge or protect, it is sure to be in favor of rob- 
bers and criminals ; they have an abundance of wives, 
yet are they addicted to fornication and adultery.^ . . . 
Britain hath priests, but they are unwise ; very many 
that minister, but many of them impudent ; clerks she 
hath, but certain of them are deceitful raveners ; pas- 
tors, so called, but rather wolves prepared for the slaugh- 
ter of souls (for they provide not for the good of the 
common people, but covet rather the gluttony of their 
own bellies) ; . . . seldom sacrificing, and seldom with clean 
hearts, standing at the altars.^ . . ." But why continue ? 
Take the catalogue of all imaginable crimes, condense 
them into one book through which is infused a burning 
lava of indignation, and you possess the essence of this 
Epistle of Gildas. Nor is he content with generalities. 
He calls upon the leading men by name ; he sets them 
face to face with their crimes ; he heaps on their heads 
the whole responsibility of their country's ruin. " What 
dost thou, also, thou lion's whelp (as the prophet saith), 
Aurelius Conanus ? Art not thou as the former (if not 
far more foul) to thy utter destruction, swallowed up 
in the filth iness of horrible murders, fornications, and 
adulteries, as by an overwhelming flood of the sea ? 
Hast not thou by hating, as a deadly serpent, the peace 
of thy country, and thirsting unjustly after civil wars 

J 77ni, § 24. 8 Ihid, i ^&. 

^Ibid, §27. 



64 KELTIC INFLUENCE. 

and frequent spoils, shut the gates of heavenly peace 
and repose against thine own soul ? ^ . . . Thou, also, 
who, like to the spotted leopard, art diverse in manners 
and in mischief, w^hose head now is growing gray, who 
art seated on a throne full of deceits, and from the bot- 
tom even to the top art stained with murder and adul- 
teries, thou naughty son of a good king, like Manasses 
sprung from Ezekiah, Vorti23ore, thou foolish tyrant of 
the Demetians, why art thou so stiff ?^ . . ." None 
but a Briton could speak with such earnestness to his 
fellow Britons.^ The impatience, the restlessness, the 
unconquerable shame at defeat, the inability to make 
most of one's position, all reveal the Keltic nature. 

Among those things for which Gildas reproaches the 
clergy, is that of being " negligent and dull to listen to 
the precepts of the holy saints (if ever they did so much 
as once hear that which full often they ought to hear), 
but diligent and attentive to the plays and foolish 
fables of secular men, as if they were the very ways to 
life, which indeed are but the passages to death." * 
This shows that though independence and virtue — 
land and goods — might pass from the Kymry, they still 
retained their love for song and story. Indeed, when 
Gildas lived was one of the brightest eras of Kymric 
poetry. His brother Aneurin and his schoolmate 
Llywarch Hen are the greatest names in the literature 
of his people. The poet's art was cultivated and cher- 

^ Ibid, % 30. ^ Ibid, § 31. 

3 It is strange that Henry Movley should doubt the authenticity of 
this book, or think of attributing it to other than Gildas. The vehe- 
mence of the style and the indignation are all too earnest for.any one 
to assume them without feeling them. His words burn. Both man- 
ner and matter point to a Briton as the author, whether that Biiton is 
Gildas or another. 

* ^P-. § 66. 



KYMRIC KELT. 65 

ished by Cliristian bards with as mucli assiduity as in 
Druidical days. The remnants of bardic lore that have 
come down to us in the precepts and maxims known as 
Triads, reveal an admirable knowledge of human nature 
and the laws of composition. They show that a bard's 
education was a serious affair. His acquisitions were 
manifold ; his criterion of excellence was elevated ; his 
attainments were put to severe tests. Here are the 
teachings of the Triads : 

" The three qualifications of poetry : Endowment of genius, 
judgment from experience, and happiness of mind. 

" The three primary requisites of genius : An eye that can 
see nature ; a heart that can feel nature ; and boldness that 
dares follow it. 

" The three foundations of Judgment : Bold design, frequent 
practice, and frequent mistakes. 

"The three foundations of learning: Seeing much, suffering 
much, and studying much. 

" The three foundations of happiness: A suffering with con- 
tentment, a hope that it will come, and a belief that it will be. 

" The three foundations of thought : Perspicuity, ampli- 
tude, and justness. 

" The three canons of perspicuity : The word that is neces- 
sary, the quantity that is necessary, and tlie manner that is 
necessary. 

" The three canons of amplitude : Appropriate thought, 
variety of thought, and requisite thought. . . . 

" The three duties of a bard : Just composition, just knowl- 
ledge, and just criticism." ^ 

With principles thus clearly laid down it is to be 
looked for that this people excel in style. And such we 
find to be the case. It has great mastery of expression. 
It has a superabundance of words. Its lively imagina- 

^ Ancient British Triads in Relics of ilie WcUh Bardsy by Edward 
Jones, 1794. 



QQ KELTIC INFLUENCE. 

tion, trained and bridled by thorough discipline, em- 
ploys metaphor and likeness with an ease and grace 
that we seek in vain among the Old English writers. 
One of the most spirited odes in Old English is that 
commemorative of the Battle of Brunanhurh in 938. 
In this manner it tells of the flight of the Scottish clans 
and of the slaughter made among them : 

" Pursuing fell the Scottish clans ; 
The men of the fleet in numbers fell ; 
Midst the din of the field, the warriors swate. 

, No slaughter yet was greater made 
E'er in this island, of people slain, 
Before this same, with the edge of the sword." ^ 

Now, compare with this the battle-ode of Aneurii^ 
(510-560). Note the abundance of imagery and the 
graceful form of expression : 

' Have ye seen the tuskyboar, 
Or the bull with sullen roar. 
On surrounding foes advancing? 
So Garadawg bore his lance. 

As the flame's devouring force, 
As the whirlwind in its course, 
As the thunder's fiery stroke, 
Glancing on the shivered oak ; 
Did the sword of Yedel's mow 
The crimson harvest of the foe." ^ 

Again, it is only the Kymric bard that truly pos- 
sesses " an eye that can see nature and a heart that can 

^ Ingram's version in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 
^ Gododin, Gray's version, in Jones's History of Ancient Welsh Bards, 
p. 18. 



KYMKIC KELT. 67 

feel nature." Here is an instance of that rare blending 
of nature into action. Taliesiist (520-570) — Shining 
Forehead — singes the deeds of Urien. He also is con- 
temporary with Gildas. He is Urien's chief bard. He 
thus describes Urien's prowess : " Doorkeeper ! listen ! 
What noise is that ? Is it the earth that shakes ? Or 
is it the sea that swells, rolling its white head toward 
thy feet ? Is it above the valley ? It is Urien that 
thrusts. Is it above the mountains ? It is Urien that 
conquers. Is it beyond the slope of the hill ? It is 
Urien who wounds. Is it high in anger ? It is Urien 
who shouts. Above the road, above the plain, above 
all the defiles, neither on one side nor on two is there 
refuge from him." * In those days princes and chiefs 
thought it not beneath them to strike the harp and sing 
the glories of the land or bewail its misfortunes. Such a 
bard was Llywaech Hex, or the Old (490-580), Prince 
of Argoed, and companion in arms with Urien. He 
was devoted to his country, and his sons inherited his 
spirit. One by one did he see them fall in battle, and 
lonely and alone he passed through life in his old age, 
wondering why he should still be left when all that was 
near and dear to him had passed away.'* In these 
touching words he bemoans the loss of his youngest 
son : " Let the wave break noisily ; let it cover the 
shore when the joined lances are in battle. O Gwenn ! 
woe to him who is too old to avenge you ! Let the 
wave break noisily ; let it cover the plain when the 
lances join with a shock. . . . Gwenn has been slain at 
the ford of Morlas. Here is the bier made for him by 
his fierce-conquered enemy after he had been surrounded 
on all sides by the army of the Lloegrians ; here is the 

^ Quoted in Henry Morley's Earhj Writers^ vol. i., part i. 
2 See liis address to his crutch. 
4 



68 KELTIC INFLUENCE. 

tomb of Gwenn, the son of the old Llywarch. Sweetly 
a bird sang on a pear-tree above the head of Gioenn^ 
before they covered him icith turf: that broke the heart 
of the old Llywarch,''''^ Here we have the perfect poet 
soul, brave and generous ; but so tender, so susceptible 
to every touch of nature. This susceptibility, this ten- 
derness, this sweet melancholy, the English will imbibe 
to a certain des^ree from their Welsh kin. 

III. — Gaedhil and Kymry. 

But the Britons themselves learned some of their ar- 
tistic cunning from their Gaedhilic brethren. Much of 
their brightest imagery, many of their most significant 
legends, came out of the sister isle. " One thing is cer- 
tain ; the traditions that form the basis of Welsh poetry 
and literature, and many of their laws, are not Welsh, but 
belong to their earlier conquerors, the Irish, or their later 
ones, the Strathclyde Britons." ^ In the Gaedhilic poetry 
we find great accuracy of description, an eye to color, a 
tendency to enter into details that almost wearies. It 
has been seen how indefinite the monster, Grendel, is in 
the poem of Beowulf The Keltic mind could not so 
conceive a monster. It must have color and shape. 
Here is an instance : " As the King's people were after- 
ward at the assembly they saw a couple approaching 
them — a woman and a man ; larger than the summit of 
a rock or a mountain was each member of their mem- 
bers ; sharper than a shaving-knife the edge of their 
shins ; their heels and hams in front of them ; should a 
sackful of apples be thrown on their heads not one of 
them would fall to the ground, but would stick on the 

' W. K. Sullivan, introduction to O'Curry's Customs and ITamiers 
of the Ancient Irish^ vol. i.,p. 40. 



GAEDHIL AND KYMRY. 69 

points of the strong, bristly hair which grew out of their 
heads ; blacker than the coal or darker than the smoke 
was each of their members ; whiter than snow their 
eyes ; a lock of the lower beard was carried round the 
back of the head, and a lock of the upper beard de- 
scended so as to cover the knees ; the woman had whis- 
kers, but the man was without whiskers." ' These are 
tangible monsters ; they can be di'awn and painted. 

With the Kelt, color is a passion ; the Teuton has 
but the mere dawnings of susceptibility to color. Two 
heroes meet in battle. Ferdiad says to Cuchulaind : 

" What has brought thee, O hound, 
To combat with a strong champion ? 
Crimson-red shall flow thy blood 
Over the trappings of thy steed ; 
Woe is thy journey ! " ^ 

Not of wounds or of slaughter speaks he, but of the 
flow of the crimson blood. In the same poem every 
warrior is described with all the accuracy of a modem 
passport. Here is an instance : "A tall, graceful cham- 
pion, of noble, polished, and proud mien, stood at the 
head of the party. This most beautiful of the kings of 
the world stood among his troops with all the signs of 
obedience, superiority, and command. He wore a mass 
of fair, yellow, curling, drooping hair. He had a pleas- 
ing, ruddy countenance. He had a deep-blue, sparkling, 
piercing, terrific eye in his head ; and a two-branching 
beard, yellow and curling, upon his chin. He wore a 

^ Tlie Banquet of Bun Na N-Oed\ edited by Dr. O'Donovan, for 
the Irish Arch. Society, p. 21. This version dates from about the 
twelfth century. 

^ Tdin Bo Chuailgne^ in O'Curry's Manners and Customs of the An- 
cient Irish, vol. iii., p. 431. 



70 KELTIC INFLUENCE. 

crimson, deep-bordered, five-folding tunic ; a gold pin in 
the tunic over his bosom ; a brilliant white shirt, inter- 
woven with thread of red gold next his white skin." ^ 
And so each leader is described with similar accuracy. 
No trait escapes. The color of the eye, the cut of the 
beard, the expression of the face, are all dwelt upon. 
One leader is described as " a man of hound-like, hateful 
face. He had light grisly hair and large yellow eyes in 
his head." ^ Later the English will learn the art of color- 
ing. And when we come upon anything so distinctly 
fresh as this — 

" Fairer child might not he born : . . . 
Bright as ever any glass, 
White as any lily-flower^ 
So rose-red was his color " — ® 

we may confidently set it down to a Keltic source. 

Another characteristic trait of the Keltic mind is its 
power to satirize and its dread of satire. The poet is 
not only honored, he is feared as well. His blessing 
was supposed to secure against harm and bring good 
with it. Among the three things in the Welsh Triads 
that will secure a man from hunger and nakedness is 
" the blessing of a bard, a true descendant of song." * 
The Keltic nature has deeply implanted in it the sense 
of the ridiculous. It has a horror for sarcasm. It scru- 
pulously avoids all that could induce it. For this reason 
it dreads a personal blemish, lest it give rise to a nick- 
name or be occasion for satire. The Keltic bard was 
permitted to satirize the patron who refused him a suit- 

* Ibid., p. 92. The Tain Bo Chuailgne is the groat epic of Ireland 
The heroine is Spenser's Queen Mab, here called Medhhh or Meave. 

2 Ibid., p. 93. 

3 King Horn, MS. in Bodleian Library, Oxford. 
^ Relics of the Welsh Bards, p. 80. 



GAEDHIL AND KYMRY. ^1 

able return for his poem, or who even denied him any- 
thing he asked. And his satire was not supposed to be 
confined to words. The poet's curse was considered ef- 
fective. It was a terror to kings and families. It caused 
fatalities to come upon man and beast. It brought steril= 
ity to the land, " so that neither corn, grass, nor foliage 
could grow." ^ And there still lingers among this people 
a vague feeling that harm comes from the satire or curse 
even of a ballad-maker. From the remotest times down 
to our own, says O'Curry, speaking of satire, " its power 
was dreaded in Erinn ; and we have numerous instances 
on record of its having driven men out of their senses, 
and even to death itself." ^ Gaedhilic legends abound 
containing proofs of the prevalence of this idea. Here 
is one : The poet Neidhe wishes to banish Caier, the 
king and his uncle, from his throne ; and as no king with 
a blemish can continue to rule, he resolves to bring one 
on him by means of satire. So he asks Caier for a pres- 
ent which he knows him to be pledged not to give away. 
" Woe and alas ! " said Caier, " it is prohibited to me to 
give it away from me." This refusal gives Neidhe pre- 
text for composing a satire. And the words of the satire 
are these : 

" Evil death and short life to Caier ; 
May spears of battle slay Caier ; 
The rejected of the land and the earth is Caier ; 
Beneath tlie mounds and tlie rocks be Caiei-." 

Thereupon three blisters appear upon the king's cheek. 
And the names of the blisters are Disgrace, Blemish, and 
Defect. And next morning, when washing himself in 

1 O'Gurry, Manners and C.istoms of the Ancient Irish, vol. i., lect 
Lv., p. TO, 

2 Ibid., lect. X., p. 217. 



72 KELTIC INFLUENCE. 

the fountain, he discovered the blisters; and forthwith 
he fled, " in order," says the story, " that no one who 
knew him should see his disgrace." * This is the spirit 
that gives force to, and makes effective, the savage on- 
slaught of a Swift. ^ 

IV. — Keltic Sentiment. 

But the master-trait of Keltic literature is the ex- 
pression of sentiment. And this expression is inwoven 
with color, and form, and love for nature, and suscepti- 
bility to its charms, in a style and with a method that 
please and delight. No other nation possesses this apti- 
tude in the same degree. It is from the Kelt that mod- 
ern peoples learned all they possess of this power. It 
enters their literature as a foreign element. The poet 
does not digest it and assimilate it to his native way 
of thinking, for it does not altogether come home to 
him. When he meets with this intimate blending of na- 
ture and sentiment, he admires it for its beauty and tran- 
scribes it as a grace beyond the reach of his art. Here is a 
passage of this character, taken from the beautiful story 
of Peredur or Parcival: " And in the evening he entered 
a valley, and at the head of the valley he came to a her- 
mit's cell, and the hermit welcomed him gladly, and 
there he spent the night. And in the morning he arose, 
and, when he went forth, behold a shower of snow had 
fallen the night before, and a hawk had killed a wild 
fowl in front of the cell, and the noise of the horse 
scared the hawk away, and a raven alighted upon the 
bird. And Peredur stood and compared the blackness 

^ Ibid.^ p. 218. The story is taken from Cormac's Glossary. 

^ See Gulliver* s Travels \ also A 3fodest Proposal. In 1835 Surgeon 
Hamilton with others examined the Dean's skull. In his report the 
surgeon says : " The skull resembles in a most extraordinary manner 



KELTIC SENTIMENT. 73 

of the raven, and the whiteness of the snow, and the 
redness of the blood, to the hair of the lady that best he 
loved, which was blacker than jet, and to her skin, which 
was whiter than snow, and to the two red ^pots upon 
her cheeks, which were redder than the blood upon the 
snow appeared to be." ^ And we are further told that 
the sight held him so spellbound, the red spots had to 
be covered from his view in order to break the charm. 
All this is of the bone and marrow of Keltic sentiment. 
It reads the same in the rhymes of Chrestien of Troyes,'^ 
and in the more artistic poem of Wolfram von Eschen- 
bach,^ as it was told in the mountains of its Welsh 
home. 

This sentiment, when woman becomes its object, as- 
sumes a caste of peculiar delicacy and tenderness. It 
has been seen that the Teuton's ideal of woman was 
that of an unsexed human being. Not so was she re- 
garded by the Kelt. She loved him, and clung to him, 
and lived for him; and he in return loved, respected, 
and protected her. The beautiful Creide is about to 
choose among her suitors. She does not, like Brunhild, 
make with them a trial of personal strength, nor does 
she condemn the rejected ones to death; hers is a more 
feminine fancy. He shall have her hand who can in 
song best describe her house and furniture.* A fair one 

the skulls of the so-called Keltic aborigines of Northern Europe, which 
are found in the early tumuli of this people throughout Ireland." 

^ Mabinogion, the Stcry of Peredur, vol. i., p. 325, ed. Lady Guest. 

2 See the Parcival of Chrestien of Troyes, 1190, in the Appendix to 
Lady Guest's edition of Malinogion. 

* Parzival, (1200), ed. Simrock. For an account of the origin, 
meaning, and influence of the Arthurian epic cycle, see part ii. of this 
work. 

'* Book of Lhmore^ quoted in O'Curry. Even the freaks and fancies 
of human nature repeat themselves all the world over. In the Chinese 



74 KELTIC INFLUENCE. 

dies with the bloom of youth and the charm of beauty 
upon her. She has only been taken for a time from her 
grieving friends by the invisible beings who inhabit hill 
and lake in Erinn, to be restored to them at some future 
day. Edain, the Queen, is such a one. A mysterious 
stranger enters the hall, and plays with her husband a 
game of chess for whatever the winner demands. The 
stranger wins, and demands Edain at the end of a year. 
At the allotted hour he enters the guarded hall, and ad- 
dresses the Queen : 

" O Befinn,^ will you come with me 
To a wonderful country which is mine, 
Where the people's hair is of golden hue, 
And their bodies the color of virgin snow ? 

"There no grief or care is known; 
White are their teeth, black their eyelashes; 
Delight of the eye is the rank of our hosts, 
With the hue of the foxglove on every cheek. ..." 

And after promising her all manner of ideal life he 
walks away with her unobserved by any but the King.'* 
The visible world and the invisible world are both 
blended in the Keltic imagiuation. And whether we 
turn to the Gaedhilic or the Kymric Kelt we find each 
making both subservient to the tender regard he has 
for woman. Thus, in Welsh story we read this de- 
novel Ju-Kiao-Li^ or The Two Fair Cousins^ which M. Abel-Remusat gave 
Europe, the heroine, Hongiu, takes a similar fancy. "She has made a 
vow against marrying a man of the ordinary sort ; she is resolved upon 
having; no one but a poet of distinguished talents ; a person who can 
vie with herself in literature, both prose and poetry." (Chap, vi.) 

^ Fair woman. 

2 0' Curry's Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, lect. ix., 
vol. ii., p. 192. — Compare Goethe's Li/ric on the Erl-King. 



KELTIC SENTIMENT. 75 

liglitful passage : Arianrod lays a destiny upon her son 
" that he never shall have a wife of the race that now 
inhabits the earth." G^vyddion complains bitterly of it 
to Math. "Well," said Math, "we will seek, I and 
thou, by charms and illusions, to form a wife for him 
out of flowers." So they took the blossoms of the broom 
and the blossoms of the meadow-sweet, and produced 
from them a maiden, the fairest and most graceful that 
man ever saw. And they baptized her and gave her the 
name of Blodeuwedd, or Flower- Aspect.^ This aerial 
play of fancy that couples the idea of a flower with that 
of a maiden in such literal relations, is preeminently 
Keltic. It is a beautiful conception. 

And when Christianity shall have emancipated wo- 
man, and raised her up to a higher plane of action and 
responsibility, and initiated her into the art of adorning 
her soul with all virtues, the Keltic mind shall rise to 
the height of this conception as well ; and as Keltic 
legends and Keltic song, from Brittany and Wales and 
Ireland, woven into the Arthurian cycle, will help to 
build up chivalry in mediaeval Europe, so will Keltic pie- 
ty contribute to strengthen the doctrine of the Church 
on the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin 
Mary. So just and so beautiful does this doctrine seem 
to Keltic sentiment that Keltic intellect, in the person 
of a Keltic theologian. Duns Scotus,^ becomes its 
warmest champion, and proclaims it a glorious pre- 
rogative not to be denied to the Mother of God, and 

^ Mabiiwffion, Math.^ vol. iii, p. 239. 

2 1274-1308. "As a theologian, Scotus defended the doctrine 
first made a dogma in our times, but •which is in complete corre- 
spondence with the spirit of Catholicism, the doctrine of the Immacu- 
lata Conceptio B. Virginis.^^ — (Ueberwcg, Hist. Pkil.^ vol. i., p. 454, 
Am, ed.) 



76 KELTIC INFLUENCE, 

forthwith the doctrine grows more popular than ever 
and its influence more striking. And what is that in- 
fluence ? It shows itself in additional respect for wom- 
an, in a refinement of manners, in a purer literature, 
and in a more ideal art. " It contributes powerfully," 
says Henri Martin, "to the softening of manners, to 
the growth of chastity, and it becomes for Christian 
art an almost inexhaustible source of inspiration." ^ In 
Christian times the restless Keltic spirit shall in its 
zeal for souls wander abroad, not only in England, 
but in France and Germany and Italy and even Ice- 
land ; bringing with " bell and book " learning and re- 
ligion, and not forgetting its charming legends and its 
sweet music. 

* Histoirc de France^ t. iii , livre xx, p. 404. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE OLD CREED AND THE NEW. 

I. — The English in their Insulae Homestead. 

The English possess themselves of the most fertile 
regions in the island. The Britons who would still be 
free retire to the mountains of Wales, or cross the Chan- 
nel to the forests of Brittany. What is the manner 
of life of the English in their new insular homestead ? 
It is that we have already seen them practice prior 
to their conquest. They brought with them their old 
manners, and customs, and laws, and modes of thought. 
N'o sooner were they securely settled than they quar- 
reled among themselves, plundered and murdered one 
another, chanted their war-songs, worshiped their gods, 
gambled, sold their children into slavery, and drank 
themselves into beasts, just as they had done in their 
days of piracy. The Britons are in possession of Chris- 
tianity, but the Britons hate their conquerors with 
too deadly a hatred to attempt to save their souls. 
Among their greatest sins Beda mentions this, "that 
they never preached the faith to the Saxons or English 
who dwelt among them."^ So for one hundred and 
fi^ty years after the landing upon the isle of Thanet, 

* Eccl. Hist, J i., xxii. 



78 THE OLD CREED AND THE NEW. 

the English remain in the darkness and superstitions of 
their old creeds/ They continue to call the days of 
the week after their gods ; they give the names of these 
gods to places ; they learn to erect temples in their 
honor. Thus Wanborough is derived from Wodnes- 
beorh ; Thursley is Thunresleah, from Thunor or Thor ; 
Thunderhill is of the same derivation, it is Thunres- 
hyl.'^ Their religion holds them with an iron grasp. It 
molds their nature ; it is part of their inner life ; its fa- 
talism impels them to deeds of daring ; its superstitions 
pervade their every action from rising to retiring ; its 
gross materialized hereafter is their great hope in life 
and their consolation in death. Its practices are such 
as please their natures ; it places no restraint upon their 
passions ; it adds a consecration to deeds the most 
abominable ; it sanctifies crimes the most horrible. It 
strengthens their selfishness. The gratification of their 
wish was to them such a power in the face of their 
fatalistic doctrines that they deified it, or rather it was 
Odin who was acting in them under the name Wisc.^ 
And so we find places called accordingly ; Wishanger 
means Wise's or Woden's meadow ; and we are told 
that in Devonshire all magical dealings still go Tinder 
the common name of wishtness^ They had magic rimes 
and spells with which to cure diseases, mend broken 
limbs, and insure the successful issue of an undertaking. 
The flowers of the field were associated with theij* 
religion ; caves and caverns were peopled with a rays' 
terious order of beings ; the very boundary-stones o^ 
their fields they placed under the protection of a god ; 

^ Ibid.^ cap. xxiii. 

2 Kemble, Saxons in England^ vol. i., p. 344. 

3 Odin = 0. N. Osk = Ger. Wunsch = Wise = Wish. 
^ Kemble, he. cit., p. 346. 



THE EXGLISn IN THEIR INSDLAR HOMESTEAD. 79 

the heavens and the earth were enveloped in the mists 
of their religious mythology ; but over all, and cover- 
ing all, and giving meaning to all, was the gratification 
of self. Now, in such a religion were to be found only 
superstition and degradation. It possessed no ennobling 
element. It never could have led to a high order of civ- 
ilization. 

II. — Geegoet the Geeat (550-604). 

But a Roman, a Christian, who is in the hands of 
Providence to be the instrument by which European 
intelligence is to be molded for centuries, meets some 
English youths in the slave market in Rome. He is 
taken with their appearance. Their well-built forms, 
their ruddy countenances, their golden hair, and bright 
blue eyes and fair white skin make him regard them 
rather as angels than men ; and forthwith he burns with 
zeal to go among a people so fair to behold, and make 
their souls as fair, and bathe them in the light of the 
gospel. But his mission is of another kind. He is called 
to the chair of Peter, and under his wise directions 
others do the work he yearned so heartily to do. Eng- 
land is converted, and the germs of a new and a higher 
civilization are planted in the natures of her English 
sons. Let us make more than a passing mention of the 
father of this new civilization. 

Gregory stamped his own and succeeding ages with 
the impress of his genius. He was alive to all the re- 
quirements of his time. His energy and activity were 
equal to every emergency. There was nothing too small 
to be overlooked ; no power too strong for him to grap- 
ple with. He was a shrewd statesman, and yet a close 
student, fond of retirement, devoted to his books. One 
day we find him rebuking a Patriarch in the East j 



80 THE OLD CREED AND THE NEW. 

another, settling some point of discipline in England or 
France ; another, impressing the necessity of some im- 
portant measure upon the Emperor ; another, bewailing 
the distractions of his office, and sighing for the retire- 
ment of his younger days ; * another, teaching the prin- 
ciples of the music that retains his name, in the schools 
he had founded for that purpose ; and still another day, 
entering into the minutest details about his farm in 
Sicily. And withal, the number and excellence of his 
writings would do honor to a professional author. He 
prized learning at its true worth. He everywhere en- 
couraged it, not indeed for its own sake, but as a means 
to attain philosophic and Scriptural truth. He laid stress 
on the fact that those around him be well educated. In 
dress and speech he took care that nothing savoring of 
barbarism appear in any of his household from the least 
to the greatest.^ " There was no one employed in the 
pontifical palaces," says Andres, " who had not received 
a refined education, and whose sentiments, language, and 
instruction were not in keeping with the majesty of the 
pontifical throne." ^ He strove hard to diminish super- 
stitions ; he banished all astrologers from his presence.* 

^ "I can not restrain my tears," wi-ites he to Leander of Seville, 
" when I transport my thoughts to that blissful haven whence they 
have dragged me." 

2 " NuUus pontifici famulantium, a minimo usque ad maximum, bar- 
barura quodlibet in sermone vel habitu prasferebat, sed togata, Quiri- 
tum more, seu trabeat a Latinitas suura Latium in ipso Latiali palatio 
singulariter obtinebat." Joan. Diaconus, Vita Greg. Mag., 1. ii., cap. 13. 

^ Origine, etc., della Letteratura, !., cap. T. 

^ Ad ha3c doctor sarictissimus ille Gregorius, qui melleo praedica- 
tionis imbre totam rigavit et inebriavit Ecclesiam, non modo mathesin 
jussit ah aula rccedere, sed ut traditur a majoribus, incendio dedit pro- 
batae lectionis 

Scripta Palatinus quaecumque tenebat Apollo. 



GREGORY THE GREAT. 81 

Piety and learning were the bulwarks witli which he 
fortified himself against the desolating march of the 
barbarian. The Roman Empire was crumbling to ruins. 
The invading hosts, intoxicated with theu* success, were 
a chaos of disorder. From the wrecks of the old, Greg- 
ory built up a new power, which in its turn conquered 
the conquerors, taught them law and order, and raised 
them in the scale of civilization. The Lombards are 
especially fierce — fierce in their paganism,^ not less fierce 
and intolerant in their Arianism.'^ Gregory treats them 
with firmness and prudence. He gains the confidence 
of Theodelinda, their queen, and seconded by her pious 
efforts he sees the whole nation adopt the true form 
of Christianity. Knowing their instinctive hatred for 
Rome, through the aid of his bishops he endeavors to 
promote among theni a spirit of peace and harmony. 
With this view he caused the Lombard prelates, at their 
consecration, to swear that they would endeavor to pre- 
serve a just peace between their nation and the Ro- 

In quibus eraut praecipua, quae coelestium mentera, et superiorum ora- 
cula videbantur hominibus revelare. John of Salisbury — Polya'aticus, 
1. ii., cap. 26. This is one of the most mischievous passages in the 
whole range of literature. It is the source of nearly all the misrepre- 
sentations historians have heaped upon Gregory. Forgetting that the 
word mathesin applied to astrologers as well as mathematicians, men 
gave out that Gregory hated mathematicians. It was the astrologers 
that Gregory banished from his court. Then, on a mere rumor — 
traditur a majoribus — this same flippant gossip states that Gregory 
burned the library on the Palatine Hill. But no historian believes the 
story now. Bayle does not think it worth refuting, for he does not 
regard the source as trustworthy. For a complete refutation of these 
and other equally silly charges made against Gregory, see Tiraboschi, 
Storia della Letteratura, t. ii., 1. ii., cap. ii., p. 151, el seq. 

* Greg. Mag., Dialog.^ iii., cap. 28. 

^ " Wherever the Lombard dominion extended, illiteracy was its 
companion." Hallam, Literature of Europe^ vol. i., p. 30. 



82 THE OLD CREED AND THE NEW. 

mans.^ Thus it was that through his influence upon 
clergy and rulers he concentrated in his hands and in 
the hands of his successors that spiritual power that 
was the guiding star of Christendom for a thousand 
years. In him is concentrated the organizing and gov- 
erning genius of Rome. 

The writings of Gregory wielded a wide and perma- 
nent influence. Still, it must be said that his genius was 
rather for administration than for writing books. He 
wrote a long and loving commentary on the book of 
Job, in which he takes sentence after sentence and 
moralizes upon each with diffuseness. This is the model 
after which commentators will write upon the sacred 
Scriptures for centuries. The method was mislead- 
ing. But it were unhistorical to find fault with the 
great Pope for not rising to the height of the inspired 
poem.^ At a time when every word and line of the 
text was literally regarded as a message from heaven 
to be taken to heart and applied to all affairs of life, 
both temporal and spiritual, such a method of Bibli- 
cal criticism would have been regarded as little less 
than sacrilegious. Gregory was content with drawing 
from the teachings of the Holy Book the whole code 
of Christian morals, as he conceived them. With the 
same view, he also wrote a book of Homilies, which 
were popular during the middle ages. They became 
the manual of the clergy. Bishops exhorted their priests 
to make of them a careful and constant study. One of 
the questions put at the visitation of a diocese was 
whether each priest had a copy of them.* At the be- 

^ Liber Diurnus Rom. Pont.., pp. 69, 71. See also Lingard's Anglo- 
Saxon Antiquit/eft. 

^ See Caesar Cantu, Histoire Universclle, t. vii., p. 428. 

^ ''■ Si habeat quadraginta homilias Gregoiii, et eas studiose legat 



GREGORY THE GREAT. 83 

ginning of his pontificate, he wrote a pastoral which was 
held in great esteem. Therein he laid down his ideal of 
a good pastor, the notes of a vocation to the priesthood, 
and the duties and responsibilities attached to the call- 
ing. The Emperor Maurice asked him for a copy of it. 
St. Anastasius, Patriarch of Antioch, translated it into 
Greek. ^ Soon we shall find Alfred give an Old English 
version of it to his English subjects. But the work of 
his especially popular at that day was his Dialogues. 
This book contributed materially to the conversion of 
the Lombards. It abounds in miracles and revelations 
of saints. It was suited to the credulity of the times.^ 
Pope Zachary had it translated into Greek '; an Ai'abic 
version of it was made in the eighth century,^ and for 
five or six centuries afterward it was highly prized. 
Love for the marvelous was the taste of the age, and 
Gregory, in this respect, was not more enlightened. 
What he wrote he believed.* With the same credulity 
of his age, he was penetrated with the idea that the end 
of the world was at hand.^ Thus it was that, though 
above his times in many respects, he was, in the preva- 
lent notions of the day, a child of his age. But amid 
the varied occupations that go to fill up the busy life of 
this great saint, he still thinks of those fair English 

atque intellegat." Reculfus, Bishop of Soissons, in his Constihdions^ 
admonishes his clergy to have a copy of them. " Also, we admonish 
that each one of you should be careful to have a missal, lectionary, 
a book of the Gospels, a martyrology, an antipbonary, psalter, and a 
book of Foi'ty Homilies of St. Gregory^ Apud Maitland, Dark Ages^ 
p. 27. 

^ Tiraboschi, ii., p. 155. ^ See Dial., iv., cap. 46. 

3 Fleury, Fed. Hist, 1. 35. 

* " D'ailleurs, il etait si eloigne de rintention de tromper, qu'il cite 
chaque fois son auteur." Csesar Cantu, Hist. Universellc, t. vii., p. 428. 

6 Epist. xi., 67. 



84: THE OLD CREED AND THE NEW. 

youths he had met in the slave-market ; his heart yearns 
for the conversion of their island home ; he has a certain 
number of English boys under the age of eighteen pur- 
chased and sent to Rome to be educated.^ But his zeal 
outstrips their progress, and he sends Augustin with 
forty missionaries. 

III. — AuGUSTIIT AND PauLIXUS. 

In 597 AuGFSTiN lands on the isle of Thanet. 
Forty monks and some Frankish interpreters are with 
him. They form into line of procession ; one of the 
brothers carries a large silver cross ; another bears the 
image of the Redeemer ; and as they wend their way 
toward the halls of Ethelbirht, they sing a litany and 
recite prayers for the eternal salvation both of them- 
selves and of the people to whom they are come. Au- 
gustin towers head and shoulders above the rest.'* But 
the King will not receive them into any house, ** lest," 
remarks Beda, " according to an ancient superstition, if 
they practiced any magical arts, they might impose on 
him." ^ No doubt this precaution was taken at the sug- 
gestion of his priests. Ethelbirht receives them in the 
open air, and after they have explained their mission he 
gives them sustenance and permits them to preach in his 
kingdom. In all probability this concession Avas made 
through the influence of Queen Bertha, who was such a 
pious Catholic as became the granddaughteV of St. Clo- 
thilde. They were tolerated ; this was enough : the rest 

' Epist. v., 10. 

^ " Beat! Augustini formam et personam patriciaro, staturam proce- 
lara et arduam, adeo ut a scapulis populo superemineret." Gotselinus, 
Vita S. Aug.^ cap. xlv. 

^ Ecd. Hist.^ i., cap. 25. 



AUGUSTIN AND PAULINUS. 85 

soon followed. The holy, continent, self-sacrificing lives 
of these pious monks were more eloquent than words. 
Men's hearts w^ere won. The religion inspiring such a 
mode of life must come from Heaven ; it must be true ; 
it must be followed. Such was their practical reasoning. 
The King was converted ; the people went with him. 
Augustin's hands were full ; his zeal put forth all its 
strength. He was naturally a timid man, scrupulously 
exact, most conservative of all the practices and cus- 
toms in which he had been trained, careful to consult 
with Gregory on the smallest points of doctrine and 
discipline ; but his saintliness and devotedness made up 
for whatever lack of natural parts there might have 
been in him. The heart of Gregory is gladdened at 
his great success. He sends him more laborers to reap 
the vast harvest — among others, Paulinus, afterward 
Archbishop of Y"ork. With them he sends vestments, 
sacred relics of the apostles and mart^^rs, ornaments for 
the churches, and many books. ^ 

No doubt, among these books were the Homilies 
and Pastoral and Morals of Gregory. When Augustin 
first lands in England, he has w4th him a library of nine 
volumes. It is scant, but characteristic. This library 
is made up of the following books : 1, The Holy Bible, 
in two volumes ; 2, the Psalter ; 3, the Gospels ; 4, an- 
other Psalter ; 5, another copy of the Gospels ; 6, the 
Apocryphal Lives of the Apostles ; 7, the Lives of the 
Martyrs ; 8, an Exposition of the Gospels and Epistles." 
Of these nine volumes, six are Scriptural, and one is 
explanatory of the Scriptures. Thus it is that the first 

1 Ecd. Hist., cap. 29. 

** " Hae sunt primitiae librorum totius Ecclesiae Anglicanae," says 
the " Canterbury Book." Edwards, Memoirs of Libraries^ chap, ii., p. 
lUO. 



86 THE OLD CREED AND THE NEW. 

English library is Scriptural. We shall soon find Eng- 
lish letters saturated with Scriptural thought and col- 
ored with Scriptural allusions. And English gratitude 
has recorded its obligations to Augustin in these touch- 
ing words : " Then it is after the number of eight 
days and nine, that the Lord took Augustin into the 
other light — happy in heart because here in Britain he 
had made earls obedient to him for the will of God 
as the wise Gregory commanded him. I have not 
heard that before him any other man or more illus- 
trious bishop ever brought better lore over the briny 
sea. He now rests in Britain among the men of Kent 
in the chief city, near the celebrated minster." ^ 

PAULiisrus is the apostle of Northumbria. Ethelber- 
ga, the daughter of Bertha, goes to that pagan land to 
wed Edwin, its pagan king. Paulinus accompanies the 
young bride to her new home ; he has but one thought 
in going into that benighted land : it is the thought and 
the hope of converting its people to the new faith. He 
is ever on the alert. He seizes upon any the least occa- 
sion to make it subserve this purpose. But during the 
first year his efforts are barren. Perhaps his too great 
anxiety was as much in the way of his success as the 
hardness of the hearts he was working upon. Still his 
zeal is finally rewarded. Edwin calls together his priests 
and chief thegns, to determine upon the feasibility of 
adopting the new religion. There were in that assem- 
bly some thoughtful men. One of them, a thegn, stood 
up and spoke an idea that must have frequently occu- 
pied his mind. It was well pondered over. It remains 
one of the most perfect utterances that have come down 
to us from that time : " The present life of man, O 

^ Anglo-Saxon Calendar ; Menolocfium, seu Calendarium Poeticum^ 
London, 1830, S. Fox. 



AUGUSTIN AJN^D PAULIXUS. g^ 

King," says this thcgn, " seems to me, in comparison of 
that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift 
flight of a sparrow through the hall wherein you sit at 
meat in winter, with your thegns and ministers, and a 
good fire burns on the hearth, while the storms of rain 
and snow prevail abroad. The sparrow flies in at one 
door and tarries for a moment around the light and heat 
of the hearth-fire, and then passes out at the other into 
the dark winter whence it had come. So this life of 
man appears for a short space, but of what went before, 
or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant. If, there- 
fore, this new doctrine contains something certain of 
these, let it be followed." ^ Others spoke in a similar 
strain. The chief priest was there, thoughtful and reso- 
lute. He was a whole-souled man, and plain-spoken, 
and opposed to shams and frauds under any shape or 
form. An honest, upright heart was his. For some 
time past he had been wavering in his belief in Thor 
and Woden. No doubt he had been a careful observer 
of the ways and doings of Paulinus ; the holy life of 
the latter was an eloquent appeal to his naturally good 
heart. Be this as it may, Coifi, for such was his name, 
opened the council by a speech in which he expressed 
his doubts concerning the old creed, and signified his 
intent of placing no obstacle in the way of the new 
doctrine. It was a hint to the more bigoted among 
his fellow priests to keep in the background. They 
took it and remained mute. Then Paulinus explained 
the new creed. His very appearance was so striking 
that it has been left on record : " He was tall and slight- 
ly stooping ; he had black hair, and a thin, pale face, 
and slender hooked nose, and he looked venerable.'"^ 

^ Beda, EccL Ilisi.^ lib. ii., cap, 13. 
2 Alfred's Bcda. 



88 THE OLD CREED AND THE NEW. 

There was conviction in his countenance, and his im- 
perfect words brought conviction to his hearers. Coifi 
was the first to break the silence that ensued. He 
arose and said : " I have long since been sensible that 
there was nothing in that which we worshiped ; be- 
cause the more diligently I sought after truth in that 
worship, the less I found it. But now, I freely confess 
that such truth evidently appears in this preaching as 
can confer on us the gifts of life, of salvation, and of 
eternal happiness." ^ He counsels the King to set fire to 
the temples. He asks and obtains the privilege of being 
the first to desecrate that of Godmanham, and over- 
throw its idols. The labors of Paulinus were blessed 
beyond his most sanguine desires. This occurred in 
A. D. 627. 

IV. — Relapse and Recovery. 

But England was not yet converted. And the his- 
tory of the struggle between the new creed and the 
old best reveals to us the character of the people. The 
missionaries were too few for the large harvest. People 
admitted to baptism by the thousand, and on the im- 
pulse of a moment, could not be well instructed. They 
little knew what they were doing. Their chief concern 
was to follow in the footsteps of their chiefs and their 
kings. With them they forsook their idols ; with them 
they attended the services and the preachings of the 
missionaries. It was for the cunning and deceitful a 
new means of finding favor with their leaders ; it was 
for the indolent an easy means of keeping themselves 
clear of suspicion and consequent trouble ; only for the 
pure and simple-hearted was the new religion a revela- 
tion. The people, seeing the good monks in favor with 

* Alfred's Bcda. 



RELAPSE AND RECOVERY. 89 

their rulers, made it a point to show them respect. But 
when these same monks went outside the kingdom of 
their protectors they met with a far different reception. 
Once, when Augustin and his companions were pass- 
ing through that part of England now known as Dor- 
setshire, they were di'iven away with violence, and the 
tails of fishes were fastened to their robes, ^ This 
instance might have shown Augustin the aerial struc- 
ture he was erecting. It was a warning to him that to 
build solidly he must dig deep down ; to make the 
new religion permanent he should seek to establish it 
among the people. Be this as it may, it is certain that 
with the passing away of the Christian rulers the coun- 
try relapsed into idolatry. The three surviving bishops 
in the south lost all hold upon the people. Two of 
them fled into France ; the third was on the point of 
following them, when a sense of duty grcAV upon him 
and overcame his fears, and he remained. The harvest 
of Paulinus also passed out of his hands on the death of 
Edwin. He fled with his ward. Queen Ethelberga, and 
her children to the home of her father, never to return 
to the land in which he had toiled with such zeal, 
patience, and apparent success. The English child of 
impulse rushed back to the religion in which he had 
been rooted for centuries with a rebound swift and 
strong as was the rush with which he had embraced the 
new faich. 

Again the work of conversion begins. This time it 
comes from another source. Ireland sent her mission- 
aries. She was then the sanctuary of learning in the 
West. Men and youths from England and the Conti- 

* Gotselinus, Vita S. Aug.^ cap. xlv. ; Monfalembert, Monks of the 
Wcst,vol. iii., p. 391 ; Lives of the English Saints — St. Auc/ustine, 241- 
214. 



90 THE OLD CREED AND THE HEW. 

nent flocked to her scliools. The venerable Beda 
informs us that all were willingly received, and were 
supplied with food, furnished books, and taught gratu- 
itously/ So great was the influx of students that they 
were compelled to encamp in military fashion around 
the school.^ The classic authors of Greece and Rome 
were read side by side with the early Fathers of the 
Church and the Divine Gospel.^ Greek had become 
such a passion that even Latin was written in Hellenic 
characters.* We have already described this people. 
Its missionaries were to be found in Europe and Asia. 
They were men as fond of travel as they were of lore ; 
but they were fonder of souls than of either. Among 
those who left their native land was Columkill, a man 
of noble blood, but of still nobler character. He was 
learned ; he had an insatiable thirst for books ; with 
the instinct of a scholar, he considered no labor too 
great to procure a new manuscript. His was a fervent 
soul raised above all manner of meanness. He was a 
patriot, loving his native land with his last sigh. He 
was a poet. But he was above all a monk, attached to 
his monastery and loving the cell in which he enjoyed 

* JEJccl. Hist, iii., cap. 27. 

^ " In the present instance we have abundant authority elsewhere 
to show that at and before and after the time of Adamnan (who died 
in the year 702), such in fact were the crowds of stranger students 
that flocked to some of our great schools of lay and ecclesiastical 
learning, that they were generally obliged to erect a village or villages 
of huts as near to the school as they conveniently could ; and, as in 
Adamnan's case, to find subsistence in the contributions of the sur- 
rounding residents." O'Curry, Manners and Customs of iJie Ancient 
Irish, lect. iv., vol, ii., p. 80. 

3 The Berne Codex of Horace is considered by Orclli to be as early 
as the eighth century. 

* Keeves's Adamnan, pp. 158, 354. 



RELAPSE AXD RECOVERY. 91 

the sweets of prayer and meditation, and transcribed 
the sacred Scriptures in his own neat hand. In 565 
this pure soul built a monastery on the island of lona. 
It soon became famed for its learning and piety. Num- 
bers flocked to enroll themselves under its great found- 
er. Other houses were established. Finally, in 635, 
Oswald asked and obtained some of those Irish monks 
to preach the Gospel in his kingdom. AiDAisnsr was sent 
him. No better man could he have received. He was 
zealous, pious, learned, charitable, and indefatigable ; 
especially noteworthy was his meekness. So long as he 
could not speak in English, Oswald acted as his inter- 
preter.* Even when traveling he studied ; and those 
who kept him company either read the Scriptures or 
committed psalms to memory with him.'^ In a few years 
Northumbria was restored to the Church. Cedd, after 
having successfully labored with others among the 
Mercians, brought the priceless boon back to the East 
Saxons. And so the good work went on till England 
became Catholic. The year of apostasy came to be 
regarded with such horror that it was dropped out of 
the records ; the names of the apostate kings were 
erased, and no dates assigned to their reigns.^ 

Y. — Shadow axd Substance. 

Contemplate for a moment this transition from the 
old faith to the new. There were many points in the 
latter which were within the grasp of the popular intel- 
ligence, for they only expressed in a new and a purer 
form things already known. They were told of a 
hereafter ; they already had faith in a future life. The 

^ Beda, Eccl. Hist., iii., cap. S. * 

2 Ibid., cap. 5. 

^ Ibid,, iii., cap. 9. See also the Saxon Chronicle, a. d. 634. 
5 



92 THE OLD CREED AND THE NEW. 

doctrine of the resurrection was explained to tliem ; of 
that too they had some notions. They were told of a 
place of punishment ; our veiy word for that place has 
come from the name of a goddess who presided over a 
similar one in their beliefs ; Hel was the mistress of the 
cold and joyless world destined for cowards and traitors. 
They were told of a place of reward for the good and 
virtuous ; they had themselves often dreamed of Odin's 
halls and the great Valhalla. They were told that there 
is but one God ; that truth came to their minds like the 
recollection of a half -forgotten story ; they had had 
some faint idea of it ; there was little or no difficulty 
in clearing away the erroneous parts with which it was 
coupled. They were told of three persons in one God ; 
that was a mystery in the presence of which they dared 
not reason ; yet they remembered how Woden and Hae- 
nir and Lodur were the three powers that took part in 
the creation of man. They were told that one of the 
Divine Persons of the Holy Trinity came on earth as a 
new-born Babe, that He grew up and lived among men 
and was put to death — not through any guilt of His own, 
for He was innocence itself — but to satisfy His Father 
for the sins of men ; that was to them a story of absorb- 
ing interest. They compared it with their myth of 
Baldr. They remembered how he — the beautiful, the 
innocent, the good and amiable Baldr, the beloved of 
gods and men — was killed through the malice of Loki ; 
and in the second coming of Christ they recognized an 
analogy to the returning of Baldr at the end of time. 
The new account threw light upon, while it gave point 
to, the old myth. One was the shadow of which the 
other is substance. And when a detailed narrative of 
the life and death of the Divine Saviour was given them, 
their hearts were touched ; their generous natures were 



SHADOW AXD SUBSTANCE. 93 

moved ; they were easily led to turn their indignation 
on themselves and do joenance for those sins that were 
the cause of so much suffering. Then, again, the chief 
festivals of the Church coincided with their holidays. 
Christmas occurred about the same time with their mid- 
winter Yule-tide. The Resurrection of the Redeemer 
was celebrated about the season that they did homage 
to their goddess Eostre. So far, their understandings 
easily glided into the new way of thinking. But when 
there was question of the practice of its precepts, they 
found themselves short of its requirements. In their 
bones were imbedded the vices of centuries ; in their 
blood ran the ferociousness of the Vikings ; in their 
minds was the lawlessness of the Bersekh'. How change 
it all ? It might not be done in a day, or in a year, or 
in a century. Christianity does not change human na- 
ture so suddenly. It destroys none of man's passions. 
It only regulates them. It teaches him how to divert 
them into channels of usefulness. 

The old mythology had a strong hold upon English 
thought ; it modified English expression ; it originated 
English words. From Nicor, the spirit of water, are de- 
rived the term water-nixies and the more familiar one 
of " Old Nick." ' The old mythology supplied names to 
their flowers. That known as " Forniotesf olme," or 
Fomiot's hand, is so called from Fomiot, the old god 
of the North. It gave some of our most significant 
words. Little think we, when saying an individual 
brags, that we are applying the name of a heathen god. 
But so it is. Bragr is one of the (Esir-gods, famed for 
wisdom and eloquence ; and the art of poetry was called 

1 Wedgwood derives tlie term from Platt-D. Mkker, the execu- 
tioner or neck-twister. {Trans. Philol Soc, vol. v., No. 105. Paper 
read February 21, 1851.) I prefer the derivation in the text. 



94 THE OLD CREED AND THE NEW. 

" bragr." But this god is upbraided by Loki for not 
being; more warlike and fond of battle.^ He is reocard- 
ed as a loud talker and a little doer. Here already is the 
idea attached to one who brags. And the names of the 
days of the week, as well as those of Yule-tide and 
Easter, are so many relics of the old creed. The same 
is true of the May-pole. Unconsciously, it is a perpetu- 
ation of the rites originally performed in honor of Phol.^ 
So also is the tradition of the boar's head a relic of 
heathen superstitions. " It is not going too far," says 
Kemble, " to assert that the boar's head, which yet forms 
the ornament of our festive tables, especially at Christ- 
mas, may have been inherited from heathen days, and 
that the vows made upon it in the Middle Ages may 
have had their sanction in ancient paganisms."^ Other 
superstitions also held their own in spite of the new 
creed. Some of them donned a Christian garment. 
Such was that celebrated charm for a sprained limb. 
In the old Continental homestead, it ran as follows : 

Phol endi Wodan Phol and Wodan 

Vuorum zi holza, Went to the wood, 
Da wart demo Balderes volon Then of Balder's colt 

Sin vuoz birenkit ; The foot was wrenched ; 

Thu biguolen Sinthgunt Then Sinthgunt charmed hiin 

Sunna era suister ; And her sister Sunna ; 

Thu biguolen Frua, Then Frua charmed him 

Volla era suister ; And her sister Folia ; 

Thu biguolen Wddan Then Wodan charmed him 

^ Edda. Thorpe, Northern Mythology, vol. i., p. 28. 

"^ "In England richtet man allgemein am ersten Mai einen soge- 
nannten May-pole auf, wobei zwar an pole, pfal, palus ags. pol gedacbt 
werden kann ; doch diirften Pol, Phol anschlagen." Grimm, Myih.^ 
p. 581. 

^ Saxons in England, vol. i., p. 357. 



SHADOW AND SUBSTANCE. 95 

S6 he wola conda: As he well could do : [ofUood 

Sose lenrenM^ sose ilaotrenM, Both icrencli of 'bone and icrench 

Sose lidirenTci ; And wrench of limb ; 

Ben zi bena^ Bone to bone, 

Bluot zi bluoda^ Blood to blood, 

Lid zi geliden, limb to limb, 

Sose gelimida sin} As if they were glued together. 

In the new island home this charm was given a 
Christian turn. It is no longer Wodan and Baldr 
who have power to cure ; that has been transferred to 
the Holy Trinity, and especially to the Third Person. 
So the conjury was made to run thus, while a black 
woolen thread with nine knots was wound round the 
injured limb : 

" The Lord rade, 

And the foal slade ; 

He lighted, 

And he righted ; 

Set joint to joint, 

Bone to bone, , 

And sineio to sinew ; 

Heal in the Holy Ghost's name." ^ 

A religion so imbedded in the popular thinking can 
not be easily uprooted. It is only by a long course of 
training that the fancy and imagination can be brought 
to run in the new groove of thought. To that end does 
the Church bring to bear all her teaching and disci- 
pline. By degrees she weeds out the tares of the old 
faith, and plants the seeds of the new. She finds spe- 
cial difficulty in getting this people to forget its hea- 

^ Kemhle, ibid,, -p. 364. This was discovered ia 1842, "on the 
spare leaf of a MS.," at Merseburg. 

' Chalmers's Nursei'y Tales. A similar charm exists in Holland 
and Belorium. 



96 THE OLD CEEED AND THE NEW. 

then mytliology, its heathen songs, and its heathen 
rites, especially in connection with wakes and burials. 
Council after council issues decree after decree ; but at 
first with slight success. A more effectual method was 
at hand. A great genius was about to sing the glories 
of heaven and earth and make Christian truth so ac- 
ceptable in song that the popular mind willingly lets 
the heathen imagery drop out of its memory and in the 
stead fills it with Scripture thought and Scripture allu- 
sion. Who that genius was and what his influence 
was we shall now inquire. 



CHAPTER IV. 

WJIITBY, 
I. — St. Hilda. 

Akd first a word upon her who fostered the genius of 
Cedmon.^ Rest we on the sea-beaten clifis of Whitby. 
It was then known as Streanshalh, and received its more 

^ Mr. Palgrare {Arcliceologia^ toI. xxiv., p. 342) weaves this theory 
about the poet's name : " Now, to the name Caedmon, whether consid- 
ered as a simple or as a compound, no plain and definite meaning can 
be assigned, if the interpretation be sought in the Anglo-Saxon lan- 
guage ; while that very name is the initial word of the book of Genesis 
in the Chaldee paraphrase, or Targum of Onkeios : h'Cadmin or h'Cad- 
mon (the 6' is merely a prefix) being a literal translation of h'Easchith 
or 'In principio,' the initial word of the original Hebrew text. It is 
hardly necessary to observe that the books of the Bible are denomi- 
nated by the Jews from their initial words : they quote and call Gene- 
sis by the name of b'Raschith ; the Chaldaie Genesis would be quoted 
and called by the name of 6' Cadmin^ a.nd this custom, adopted b}' them 
at least as early as the time of St, Jerome, has continued in use until 
the present day." The word Gaedraon is not found in the Old English 
dictionaries ; but the word Ced is, and means boat or wherry ; so that 
Cedmon would mean boatman or wherryman. It is a name still com- 
mon in Yorkshire. Writing in the last century, Lionel Charlton says : 
" Cedmon's memory remained in great veneration, not only at Strean- 
shalh, but also through the whole kingdom of Northumberland, where 
his name was long honorably used as an appellative or proper name, 
and after the Conquest was adopted as a surname ; so that there 3'et 
remain to these our days some families in Whitby and its neighbor- 
hood that are known by the name of Cedmon or Sedman ; a name with 
us the most honorable and ancient of all others." {History of Whitby y 



98 WHITBY. 

modern name only from tlie Danes. The zealous and 
devoted Bishop Aidann is still actively at work. It was 
in 640, at Hartlepool, that he founded the first nunnery 
in Northumberland, and placed at its head an Irish lady 
named Heru. Later on he builds a monastery at 
Whitby. He appoints to govern it the Abbess Hilda. 
A most remarkable woman was this saint. Baptized 
at the age of fourteen by Paulinus, she preserved un- 
spotted the robe of innocence with which, on that day, 
she was clothed. She lived with her relatives and 
friends till the age of thirty-three, when she entered a 
convent in East Anglia and consecrated herself to God. 
Thence she is called by Aidann to govern the new-built 
monastery at Whitby. It is a double monastery, hav- 
ing a house for men and one for women, according to 
a custom prevalent in those days.^ With both is Hilda 

b. i., p. 17: York, 1'779.) Bouterwek, an authority of great weight on 
such subjects, finds no difficulty in deriving the name from an Old Eng- 
lish origin. In a learned dissertation on the subject he says : " Ipsum 
Cedmonis nomen (cf. Gr. Gr. 2, 507) initio appellativura fuisse, dubium 
non est. Varise ejus formas sunt : Cedmon, Caedmon, Ceadmon, vox 
ipsa composita e mon^ vir (cf. Paraphr. p. 89, 3 : flotmon nauta, p. 186, 
12 ; vraec-mon, fugitivis), et ced^ quod ut in glossis a CI. Monio editis 
est (p. 331) lintrem denotat. Cedmon tamen non nautam signifieare 
videtuFj sed potius idem valere quod scegdhmov^ pirata, a scegdh, sceidgh 
liburna, scapha (cf. Gr. 3, 437, ibique Gl. Monii). Hoc vero nomen 
nihil infame habuisse, alia ejusmodi veterum nomina, e. g. landsceatka 
latro, hros-dioph, heriwolf, beowulf cet. satis luculenter testanter (cf 
Gr. Gr. 3, 785, notam). {De Cedmone^ JElberfeldce, p. 9.) Such stress 
need scarcely be laid upon the mere name were it not for some at- 
tempts to build up a theory, to which Mr. Henry Morley inclines, that 
the Irish monks received their teachings and traditions, not from Rome, 
but from the East. This is a theory for which the writer, after a dili- 
gent search, has been able to discover no foundation. 

^ See Lingard's Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church for exam- 
ples and authorities, pp. 82,83 ; also Vit. St. Liohce apud Mabillon, 
Saec. 3. 



ST. HILDA. 99 

charged, and well and efficiently does she govern them. 
The monastery of men becomes a shrine of learning and 
science, and is noted as the nursery whence issued 
several saintly bishops. The prudence, tact, and holy 
life of the abbess extend their beneficial influence far 
beyond the convent-walls. Bishops and kings consult 
her under difficulties.^ Contesting parties refer their 
feuds to her and abide by her decision. Her tact in 
this respect was noteworthy. ISTo one ever thought of 
appealing from her word. She died in 680, in her sixty- 
third year, deplored by all, and left in the north of Eng- 
land a name undimmed by centuries. Her memory is 
still kept green by the gratitude of a people to whose 
ancestors she was a benefactor. Everything strange 
or wonderful in the neighborhood of Whitby occurs 
through her interposition. Nothing hurtful might ap- 
proach her abode. Wild geese could not fly over her 
monastery.'^ Ammonites abound in that district ; to 
the fancies of the people they are snakes turned to stone 
by the dear St. Hilda. Under favorable circumstances 
a mirage may be seen in one of the windows of the 
ruins of the church still standing ; it is the dear St. 
Hilda, who continues to show her love for the good 
people of Whitby, by watching over them from this 
window.^ Childish fancies these of a childlike people, 

^ Butler, Lives of the Saviis, vol. iv., p. 370. 

^ Camden. 

^ A paper that was formerly printed and sold in Whitby alludes to 
these legends. It may be found in Grose's Antiguiii.es of England^ 
vol. vi., p. 163, Therein St. Hilda is represented as speaking in the 
following rude verses, written with more affection than good taste : 

"Likewise a \\indow there I placed, 
That you might see me as undressed : 
In morning gown and night-rail there, 
All the day long fairly appear. 



100 WHITBY. 

Avho tlius embody tbeir gratitude and devotion in legend 
which outlives history and hard fact. By us she is to 
be remembered as the person who encouraged and drew 
out the genius that was to revolutionize the popular 
heathen mind. She was the fast friend of Cedmon. 

II. — The Stoey of Cedmon's Life unraveled. 

The life of Cedmon^ lies buried in fable and obscu- 
rity. But through the mists in which his name is envel- 
oped we can discern enough whereby to know that he 
was advanced in years before he became a monk ; that 
prior thereto he was an eminently pious man ; that he 
sought rather to obey the dictates of his conscience than 
to please men ; that his genius was appreciated in his 
own day, and that he was regarded as one of the bright- 
est glories of his age. The first glimpse we get of him 
is at festivals and entertainments. On such occasions, 
when the guests were well filled with meat and warmed 
uj) with beer, it was customary for each to contribute 
to the common amusement of all by singing a song. To 
this we find Cedmon uniformly objecting. When he 
saw the musical instrument approach, he arose from the 
table and went home. At first sight such conduct would 
mark him as being unsocial. Why might he not let the 
harp 2:>ass him by ? Others there were who could not 
sing, and still who remained and enjoyed the occasion. 
The usual penalty for such delinquencies was to be com- 
pelled to take a certain quantity of beer in one drink. 
He might have paid the penalty or allowed himself to 

At the west end of the church you'll see 
Nine paces there, in each degree ; 
But if one foot you stir aside, 
My comely presence is denied ; 
Now this is true what I have said, 
So unto death ray due I've paid.'* 



THE STORY OF CEDMON'S LIFE UNRAVELED. IQl 

be mulcted in some other way, and not have persistently 
marred the pleasures of the festival by leaving in so 
abrupt a manner. Reason there must have been, and 
reason there was, for the strange proceeding. Cedmon's 
was no sullen disposition. It is not, as the Venerable 
Beda informs us, because he could not, so much as be- 
cause he would not sing, that he left the festive hall so 
frequently. His companions knew that he could sing, 
and in all probability anticipated from him the crowning 
effort of the occasion. It was to avoid their displeasure 
and perhaps their anger by a direct refusal, that he 
chose to leave at some favorable moment prior to the 
placing of the harp in his hand. And what were those 
songs he did not choose to sing ? They were not the 
pretty sentimentalities of modern drawing-rooms. Such 
things were unknown in Cedmon's day. They were not 
soundings of the deeper feeling of love. That too, as 
has been seen, was unknown to the English nature as a 
sentiment to be sung and played with. "That culti- 
vated feeling," says Sharon Turner, " which we call love, 
in its intellectual tenderness and finer sympathies, was 
neither predominant nor probably known. The stern 
and active passions were the rulers of society, and all the 
amusements were gross or severe." ^ They might have 
been martial lays ; but to these Cedmon would scarcely 
have objected. He who sang so well of the warrings 
of the angels in heaven, and described so graphically 
the submersion of Pharaoh's hosts, could not find it in 
him to refuse to chant a strophe of the Fight of Finnes- 
burgh, or sing the deeds of Beowulf. He had sung 
them from boyhood ; he had been fired by their spirit ; 
he knew them by heart ; they were part of his think- 
ing. Not to these did he have repugnance ; but there 
' Anglo-Saxons, vol. iii., p. 263. 



102 WHITBY. 

was another species of song popular at festivals, which 
it grieved his soul to listen to. It was the mythic deeds 
of Thor and Odin, and the other pagan gods, that he 
refused to sing. " It might easily be proved," says Dr. 
Guest, " that our fathers had poems on almost all the 
subjects which were once thought peculiar to the Ed- 
da." ^ And there was still another kind of poetry, which 
was at first connected with the rites and ceremonies of 
the pagan religion, and which, long after these rites and 
ceremonies had fallen into disuse, continued to be sung 
at festivals and wakes. It was a practice common to 
many of the Teuton races. And the songs used were gen- 
erally of a most unspeakable character.^ Now, as late as 
the middle of the ninth century, Leo lY. forbade the Sax- 
ons to sing the diabolical hymns which the common peo- 
ple were accustomed to sing over their dead.^ This was 
the singing that shocked Cedmon's Christian sensitive- 
ness. It clouded the sunshine of his naturally convivial 
disposition. He felt that it was unworthy of a Chris- 
tian's lips to utter, or a Christian's ear to listen to. He 
saw that no good came of it. And once he was at an 
entertainment in the neighborhood of Whitby Abbey ; 
the company was in a rejoicing mood ; the beer flowed 
freely ; the harp was taken up ; one of the f casters be- 
gan to sing ; the song was of this objectionable kind. 
Cedmon could not endure it ; he left the hall in sadness. 
With heavy heart he went out to the stable to take care 
of the horses. It was the custom for one of the com- 
pany to guard the horses during the night ; for at this 

^English Rhjthms, vol. ii., p. 241. 

2 Thus of the Lombards did Gregory the Great write : " More sue 
iramolaverunt caput caprae diabolo, hoc ei per circuitum curreutes et 
carmiiie ncfando dedicantes.'''' Greg, M. Dialog.^ iii., cap. 2S. 

^ See Wackernagel, Das JVessebrunncr Gebot^ p. 25. 



THE STORY OF CEDMON'S LIFE UNKAVELED, 103 

time honesty was not one of ttie English virtues, and 
theft was considered a crime only when detected. In 
his solitude the heinousness of these pagan songs among 
a Christian people weighs him down. It is a thought 
that has been growing upon him. For some time past 
he has been asking himself if there is no way by which 
to banish this last remnant of paganism still clinging to 
the English mind. While revolving the subject in his 
heart, he looks across the plain and discerns the lights 
from Streanshalh stream in upon him. He remembers 
the Abbess Hilda ; he thinks of the good monks who 
live under her mild and motherly protection ; he is not 
unmindful of the calm and peaceful life they lead ; he 
contrasts it with the rude scenes through which he has 
frequently to pass. He remembers the boisterous feast- 
making from which he came, and then he thinks that 
just at that very moment those good monks and nuns 
are also rejoicing, but after another fashion. They too 
express their sentiments in canticles of gladness and 
sorrow as varied as the emotions of hunian nature. 
" Th^re," he said to himself, " is heaven upon earth ; 
there are men and women leading angels' lives, and, like 
those around the throne of God, singing the praises of 
their Creator." Thereu^^on he muses upon heaven ; he 
remembers the angelic choirs ; he feels his soul within 
him flutter with eager desire to sing of the abode of the 
blessed, of the creation of the world, of the ways of 
Providence toward men ; and then and there he deter- 
mines to render himself worthy of the honor of singing 
of these high themes by purifying his heart still more, 
and making it a fitting instrument to be played upon by 
the Divine Hand. He resolves to consecrate the remain- 
der of his days to the noble purpose of making poems 
that will supersede the shameful songs that still bind so 



104 WHITBY. 

many Christian hearts to the pagan world of thought. 
Then and there does he feel the new mantle of inspiration 
descend upon him ; he sings the creation ; he dreams of 
it ; he remembers the next morning the lines he had com- 
posed the night previous ; he also remembers his good 
resolution. He goes to the " town-reeve, who is his eal- 
dorman," ^ and tells him of his purpose. The latter brings 
him to the Abbess Hilda. He repeats to her the intro- 
ductory lines he improvised on the Creator and His 
works. She calls together several of the learned men 
in her monastery, and has Cedmon to repeat his verses 
before them ; for she is first desirous of knowing 
whether the verses he repeats are his own, or whether 
or not he is an impostor. But they all of them are fa- 
vorably impressed with his rare talents. " They con- 
cluded," says Beda, "that heavenly grace had been 
conferred on him by our Lord." Still they resolve to 
put him to a further test. They recite for him some 
passages from the Holy Scriptures ; these they explain 
to him, and request him to compose some verses on them. 
He goes home, constructs his poem, and returns next 
morning with the whole idea done up in most excellent 
poetry. St. Hilda is delighted. Embracing the grace 
of God in the man, she encouraged him to adopt the 
monastic habit.^ He did so, and she associated him with 
the brethren in her monastery, leaving instructions that 
he be taught sacred history. And as he learned its mean- 
ing and spirit, he turned various parts of the sacred 
Scripture into English poetry. 

The English language had never before clothed such 

' Alfred's translation of Beda. 

"^ " Unde mox abbatissa amplexata gratium Dei in viro, saecularum 
ilium habitam relinquere, et monachicum suscipere propositum docuit." 
Tlid. Eccl.^ lib. iv., cap. 24. 



THE STORY OF CEDMOX'S LIFE UNRAVELED. 105 

sublime thoughts. Never was its power of expression 
stretched to its full bent. N^one but the greatest genius 
could render it adequate to the themes. But Cedmon 
was equal to the task. He succeeded admirably. His 
poems became popular. " The revolution," says Guest, 
" effected by Cedmon appears to be complete." ^ All 
imitation of his works only showed how inimitable they 
were. " Others after him," says Beda, " attempted, in 
the English nation, to compose religious poems, but 
none could ever compare with him." ^ He created that 
intense and earnest religious feeling in the popular mind 
which was so prevalent down to the days of the Venera- 
ble Beda.^ The pagan hymns became less frequent. The 
strong light of his bright song dimmed their last rays. 
Expressions so forcible and verses so hai'monious laid 
strong hold upon the popular thinking. The man sing- 
ing so beautifully must have been inspired by Heaven. 
So thought the people. And some among them had a 
dim recollection of a great poet who had been first a 
shepherd, and, having learned how to sing in a dream, 
remembered what he had composed in his sleep, sang it 
next day and continued to sing beautiful things till 
death. It mattered little to them about the name; but 
among them was a poet who must have learned after 
some such manner. Let us recall the earlier myth. It 
is related of Ilallbiorn that he was a shepherd lad who 
watched his flock near by the grave of the poet Thor- 
leifr. One day he took it in his head to sing a hymn of 
praise in honor of the poet; "but," we are told, "be- 
cause the lad was entirely uneducated, he was unable 

* Rhythms, ii., p. 241. 
^ Ecclesiastical History, b. iv., ch. 24, 

^ Wright, Essay on Anglo-Saxon Literature, in Biographia Briian- 
nica Liieraria, vol. i. 



106 WHITBY. 

to carry out his pious design. Then, one night did the 
hillock open up, and a stately man walked up to the 
shepherd, touched his tongue, repeated a verse aloud for 
him, and returned to his grave. When Hallbiorn awoke 
he remembered the verse which he had heard, and from 
that day forth became a celebrated poet." ^ Thus it 
was that Cedmon had come to be regarded as a divinely 
insjDired shepherd. 

III. — The Themes Cedmon^ san^g. 

Once more we catch a glimpse of the man. He him- 
self lifts the veil for us. He is at the pinnacle of his 
fame; old age is closing upon him with an iron grasp; 
friends are dropping away from him into the grave; the 
old faces have passed; the new ones may have more ad- 
miration for his genius, but he can not make them bosom 
friends. A large stone cross is to be erected. It is a 
costly monument, a great artistic effort for that day. 
Our Lord is represented as standing on two swine. A 
Latin inscription tells us that He is a judge of equity, 
and that the wild beasts acknowledge the Saviour of the 
world in the desert.'* Lower still Paul and Anthony 
are pictured breaking their loaf in the desert; another 
Latin inscrijption speaks the fact. But, as in olden times 
similar stone monuments had the praises of some heathen 
god inscribed in Runic characters, so is it now desired 

^ Bouterwek, CcedmorCs Dichiungen, Vorrede. Cf. Grimm, Myth.^ 
855. Pausanias relates a similar tradition of .^schylus : " jEsehylus 
says of himself that when a boy he once fell asleep in a field, where he 
was watching some grapes, and that Bacchus appeared to him in a 
dream and exhorted him to write tragedies." (Lib. i., cap. xxi., 2, p. 28, 
ed. Dindorfii.) Pausanias lived about a. d. 1*70. 

'^ " Jesus Christus judex aequitatis. Bestias et dracones cognoverunt 
in deserto salvatorem mundi." 



THE THEMES CEDMON SANG. 107 

to have a Christian hymn perpetuated upon this. Who 
is so capable as Cedmon ? Time and again, as he him- 
self tells us, has he composed such inscriptions. And in- 
to this, his last, he seems to have thrown his whole soul. 
He has a dream, in which the Rood speaks to him and 
recounts its feelings and emotions as the Redeemer was 
transfixed to it: 

" Metliouglit I saw a Tree in mid-air hang — 
Of trees the brightest — mantling o'er with ligl it- streaks; 
A beacon stood it, glittering with gold." ^ 

Long lay he, looking with sorrow upon the Healer's 
Tree — Hmlendes treow — till at last it spake and told 
how it grew upon the wood's edge, was cut down and 
set upon a hill. It says : 

" I spied the Frey ^ of man with eager haste 
Approach to mount me ; neither bend nor break 
I durst, for so it was decreed above, 
Though earth about me shook." 

And then the Rood tells the whole story of the suf- 
fering and death and burial and resurrection of the 
Saviour. It further speaks of its becoming honored 
since that memorable event, though once it was reck- 
oned " hardest punishment, loathliest among men, ere 
life's way it had made straight and broad to speech- 
bearing: mortals." For which it considers itself hon- 
ored more than all other trees, even as — 

^ " Thuhte me thoct ic ge?a\ve syllicre treow 
On lyfte laedan, leohte bewunden, 
Beama beohrtost. Eall tliaet beacen waes 
Begoten mid golde." 
^ Frey is the god of peace. When its mythological significancy 
was lost, it became an epithet of honor for princes, and is found fre- 
quently applied to our Lord and God the Father. Notice that Cedmon 



108 WHITBY. 

" His Mother, Mary's self, Almighty God 
Most worthily hath raised above all women." 

And now the poet enters into himself and expresses 
his great confidence in obtaining salvation through the 
Cross. This confidence is all the greater inasmuch as 
he hath sung its glories so frequently : 

" Soul-longings many in my day I've had, 
My fife's hope now is that the Tree of Triumph 
Must seek I. Than all others oftener 
Did I alone extol its glories ; 
Thereto my will is bent, and when I need 
A claim for shelter, to the Rood I'll go. 

Of mightiest friends, from me are many now 
Unclasped, and far away from our world's joys ; 
They sought the Lord of Hosts, and now in heaven, 
"With the High-Father, live in glee and glory ; 
And for the day most longingly I wait, 
When the Saviour's Rood that here I contemplate 
From this frail life shall take me into bliss — 
The bliss of Heaven's wards : the Lord's folk there 
Is seated at the feast; there's joy unending; 
And He shall set me there in glory, 
And with the saints their pleasures I shall share." ' 

gives the expression to the Rood, but nowhere in the poem uses it 
himself. 

^ The Ruthiocll Cross. The Runic form of this poem was first cor- 
rectly deciphered by Kemble. The whole poem was afterward found 
in the Vercelli Book. The dialect of the lines on the Ruthwell Cross 
is regarded by Mr. Kemble as " that of Northumbria in the seventh, 
eighth, and even the ninth centuries" (Archceologia, vol. xxviii.). 
Professor George Stephens made a special study of the Cross and dis- 
covered an additional Rune attributing the poem to Cedmon. It reads : 
Ccedmon mce faucetho. See The Ruthwell Cross^ by Professor George 
Stephens, F. S. A., London, 1866. The version in the Vercelli Book is 
in more modern dialect than that in Runes. Some attribute the poem 
to Cynewulf ; he may have retouched it, and given it its present form. 



THE THEMES CEDMON SANG. 109 

The poem breathes throughout charity, sweetness, 
piety. It is a dream, an allegory, the forerunner of the 
numerous dreams that subsequently figure in English 
literature : of Langland's, and Chaucer's, and Lydgate's, 
and Dunbar's, and John Bunyan's. But this wail of 
Cedmon for the friends of other days, with which the 
poem closes ; this longing hope soon to join them ; this 
living by anticipation in the celestial mansions — is the 
last glimpse we get of the man till the hour when his 
desires are to be fulfilled and his poetic soul passes from 
the beauties of earth to th^ bliss of heaven. 

Living in so elevated a sphere of thought, Cedmon 
could find it in himself to write nothing but what 
tended to elevate and spiritualize the aspirations and 
emotions of h^iman nature. The Venerable Beda bears 
testimony to this effect : " He never could compose 
frivolous and useless poems, but those alone pertaining 
to religion became his religious tongue." ^ But withal, 
wide was the range of his themes. He did not confine 
himself to the mere paraphrasing of Scripture, or alle- 
gorizing upon the Rood. He also sang of the Divine 
attributes ; of the judgments and the mercy of God to 
men ; of the beauty of virtue and the hideousness of 
vice ; but he sang with such fervor and persuasion that 
he led many from their evil ways to the practice of 
good deeds. This is no fictional assertion. The his- 
torian takes the pains to inform us of it. "By his 
verses," says the Venerable Beda, "many were often 
excited to despise the world, and to aspire to heaven." 
As they became part of the people's thinking, the rec- 
ollections of paganism faded out into the dim mists of 

^ " Nihil unqiiam frivoli et supervacui poematis facere potuit ; sed ea 
tantummodo quae ad religionem pertinent, religiosam ejus linguam de- 
cebant." Hist. EccL^ lib. iv., cap. xxiv. 



110 WHITBY. 

the past, occasionally to be remembered in order to 
weave a legend about some Christian great one, such as 
that they applied to Cedmon himself. 

IV. — The Secret of Cedmojs^'s Success. 

The secret of his success was twofold — it lay in his 
great genius and in his holy life. Of the first it is not 
easy at this distance of time to form an adequate idea. 
Conceive a people with the ignorance and mental inac- 
tion of centuries weighing them down and making them 
of the earth, earthy ; knowing only the use of the in- 
struments of war and the chase ; brutal in their habits ; 
material in their thoughts ; their uncouth natures slight- 
ly glossed with a varnish of Christianity ; Christian in- 
deed in name and in creed, but pagan in many of their 
customs and manners — conceive all this, and then re- 
member that this people is daily witnessing scenes of 
war and bloodshed. The old English chroniclers record 
them with an admirable coolness : " a. 658. This year 
Kenwalh fought against the Welsh at Peonna. . . . 
A. 661. This year, during Easter, Kenwalh fought at 
Pontesbury, and Wulfhere, the son of Penda, laid the 
country waste as far as Ashdown. . . . And Wulf- 
here, the son of Penda, laid waste Wight, and gave the 
people of Wight to Ethelwalde, King of the South Sax- 
ons, because Wulfhere had been his sponsor at baptism. 
... A. 675. This year Wulfhere, the son of Penda, 
and Escwin, the son of Cenfus, fought at Beaden-head. 
. . . A. 676. And Ethelred, King of the Mercians, 
laid waste Kent. ... a. 679. This year Elfwin was 
slain near the Trent, where Egfrid and Ethelred fought, 
and St. Etheldrida died." The death of a saint, a bat- 
tle, the slaying of a man, are all told in the same breath ; 
they are all of them events of almost daily occurrence. 



THE SECRET OF CEDilON'S SUCCESS. m 

These are the scenes in which Cedmon lived and moved. 
In the midst of all this din he raised his voice and was 
heard. He sang the substance of which all the ancient 
myths were but the shadow. He led men to forget 
more and more the pagan past ; to exchange the dirges 
on the death of Baldr for the doleful strains on the 
Saviour's passion ; to let the glories of Valhalla be- 
come dimmed by the more spiritual and real splendors 
of the heavenly kingdom. This was a great work ; it 
was a noble task ; it was molding the popular mind 
into new shape ; it was helping to spiritualize their na- 
tures ; it was preparing the soil for the seeds of grace. 
None but the greatest genius could have achieved it all. 
He brought the Oriental imagery of the Bible within 
the comprehension of the humblest English mind ; he 
draped it in the English fashion of thinking ; he made 
its purely spiritual language palpable to the English 
imagination. He did it in language musical and flow- 
ing. His verses have been the admiration of all those 
who gave them attention. " His accent," says Guest, " al- 
ways falls in the right place, and the emphatic syllable 
is ever supported by a strong one. His rhythm changes 
with the thought — now marching slowly with a stately 
theme, and now running off with all the joyousness of 
triumph, when his subject teems with gladness and ex- 
ultation." ^ 

But the holiness of his life no less than the strength 
of his genius added weight to his words, and made 
them strike with such force. The Venerable Beda 
bears testimony to his virtues. He was an eminently 
religious man, fond of prayer, devoted to the reception 
of the sacraments of the Church, attentive and punc- 
tual in the performance of his various duties. He was 
' Rhythms^ ii., p. 50. 



112 WHITBY. 

a cheerful worker in God's service, submissive in all 
things to the will of his superiors, happy when he saw 
others the same ; but he was the terror of those whom 
he found disorderly and lagging in their duties toward 
their Creator. Having entered religion late in life, he 
was prepared to appreciate its quiet, peaceful, undis- 
turbed ways, as he contrasted them with the fickleness 
and boisterousness of the world he had abandoned, and 
he thought that others should in this respect feel as he 
felt. His happy, cheerful disposition — always prepared 
with a kind word or a pleasant saying — tended to make 
the religious life attractive to others. There was no- 
thing gloomy in his piety. He was no friend of mo- 
roseness. This last he regarded in its true light, rather 
as a hindrance than a help to genuine religious feeling. 
Leading such a life, how else could his death be than 
happy also ? And such the Venerable Beda tells us it 
was. Let us linger over his last days, and watch the 
going out of that brilliant meteor of English song. To 
be able to stand by the death-bed of England's first 
great poet is a rare privilege. For some time a disease, 
the nature of which is not mentioned, had been under- 
mining his constitution ; during two weeks he felt it 
weakening him beyond recovery ; and now he feels 
that the day of his dissolution is at hand. Nothing 
daunted, he moves about among his brethren ; his 
cheery soul sheds sunshine into their hearts ; in what- 
ever mood he finds them, he leaves them with a laugh- 
ing face and a pleasant thought. The evening of this 
last day he walks over to the infirmary, and asks those 
in attendance to prepare a bed for him, which they do 
with no small share of surprise. He stays up till after 
midnight, keeping everybody enlivened with his plea- 
sant conversation. Midnight passed, he asked to com- 



THE SECRET OF CEDMON'S SUCCESS. 113 

municate in tbe reception of the holy Eucharist. And 
they answered : " What need of the Eucharist ? for 
you are not likely to die, since you talk so merrily with 
us, as if you were in perfect health." But he insisted 
on receiving it, and according to the custom of that 
day it was placed in his hands. He then asked those 
around him whether they were all in charity with him 
and free from rancor. There was only one answer — a 
unanimous " Yes." How else could they be with such 
a genial companion, holy religious, and great poet ? 
He was full of life and humor ; he had frequently made 
them laugh, but it was not at the expense of charity, 
it was not by giving pain to others. So, when the same 
question was put to him immediately after, well might 
he say, " I am in charity, my children, with all the ser- 
vants of God." But the ruling passion asserted itself 
even in death. Cedmon desires to hear once more the 
praises of God sung, before he goes to sing them in 
heaven in union with the angelic choirs and the friends 
who passed before him. He would have his soul waft- 
ed upon the song of prayer and benediction ascending 
from the chapel near by. So he asks how soon the time 
was when the brothers were to sing the nocturnal 
praises of the Lord ; and, when told that it was not far 
off, he said, "Let us await that hour"; and, signing 
himself with the sign of the cross, he laid his head on 
the pillow, and, falling into a slumber, his soul passed 
away.^ A death befitting his life. 

Let us now address ourselves to that which still lives 
of him — his spirit as embodied in his poetry. 

^ Bed a, loc. cit. 



114 WniTBY. 

V. — Cedmoist at Work. 

Cedmon's genius, in its first flight, disdains all mid- 
way courses, and soars into the celestial empyrean. With 
the deeds of human heroes he is familiar ; but he will 
none of them. In praise of his holy Creator alone — 
Heaven's Ward — will he attune his harp. The gods of 
his English ancestors have been extolled ; right proper 
is it then that the true God — the Glory-King of hosts — 
have a lay dedicated to Him. And so the poet bursts 
forth into a most eloquent prelude ; every word is brim- 
ful of meaning ; every line bends beneath the weight of 
his theme, and word and line show each alike how he 
labored to grapple with his subject in a manner adequate 
to its dignity : 

" Mickle right it is that we, heaven's guard, 
Glory-King of hosts ! with words should praise, 
With hearts should love. He is of powers the efficacy ; 
Head of all high creations ; 
Lord Almighty ! In Him beginning never 
Or origin hath been ; but He is aye supreme 
Over heaven-thrones, with high majesty 
Eighteous and mighty." ^ 

Never, in the history of Old English thought, was 
such a poetic beginning heard. It is the song of a soul 
strong in its convictions of the greatness and majesty of 
Him it extols. This is the passage said to have been 
composed by the poet that memorable night he watched 
in the stable. Then follows a brief account of the re- 
bellion and fall of the angels, which, in all probability, 
was the theme given him by the learned men of the 
community as a test ; for he afterward reverts at length 

^ Guest's translation in English Hhi/ihms, vol. ii. 



CEDMON AT WORK. 115 

to the same subject. The description is vividly English. 
God is a stern Overlord who treats his adversaries with 
an iron hand. " Stern of mood he was ; he gript them 
in his wrath ; with hostile hands he gript them, and 
crushed them in his grasp." This was succeeded by- 
peace. On earth, it was a rare thing in his day ; so he 
sings of it in heaven: 

" Then as before was peace in heaven — 
Fair peaceful ways ; the Lord beloved of all — 
The ruler of His Thanes — in splendor grew ; 
The good all bliss fuU-sharing with their Lord." * 

As the subject grows upon the poet in all its great- 
ness, he also rises with it. Could we be witnesses of 
the labor with which, as he pondered over verse after 
verse of the Bible, he struck out those flashes of light 
that shone in his day, and are not yet dimmed, we 
would see a giant-like struggle between matter and 
spirit ; the limited utterance and the unbounded desire ; 
the strong determination breaking up the new field of 
poesy with fierce energy. He read the opening of Gen- 
esis. The awful sublimity of those words penetrated 
him : " And the earth was void and empty, and dark- 
ness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of 
God moved over the waters." "^ Some expressions in it 
reminded him of his old English cosmogony. " The 
earth was void and empty" : "This," thought he, "is 
the Ginunga-gap, the yawning abyss, of which my an- 

' " Tha waes soth swa aer, sibb on heofnuni — 
faegre freotho-theawas ; frea ealluni leof — 
theoden Iiis thegnum — thrymmas weoxon ; 
dugutha mid drihtne dre^m-haebbendra." 

Thorpe's Ccedmon^ p. 5. 

2 Genesis i. 2. 
6 



).16 WHITBY. 

cestors sang. I must sing of it too without introducing 
the flesh and bones of Ymir." Therefore he sang : 

" Here yet did naught exist save cavern shade, 
But deep and dim did stand this wide abyss." ^ 

And in these lines, if the poet remembered, he also 
anticipated. The "wide abyss" — wida grund — is the 
Ginunga-gap — the yawning abyss — of the Edda ; but 
so also is the " cavern shade " — heolster-sceado — the 
" darkness visible " of Milton.'* Again, the coloring of 
the older poems of his English ancestors clings to his 
description of things in that beginning of times. He 
remembers how it was sung : " When Ymir lived no 
earth was found, nor heaven above ; one chaos all, and 
nowhere grass.^^ ^ These were not the words, but they 
were clearly the idea in his mind when he dictated or 
penned these lines : 

" Earth's surface was 
With grass not yet l)egreened ; while far and wide, 
The dusky ways, with black, unending night, 
Did ocean cover."* 

Thus he worked in the smithy of his brain, as he 
hammered out his golden verses. Thus he brought the 
Scripture-thoughts within the grasp of the popular mind. 
But as he advances he leaves behind him still more the 
imagery of the past, and accommodates himself more 
closely to the new order of ideas. Even his meter 

' " Ne waes her th4 giet nymthe heolster-sceado 

wiht geworden, ac thes wida grund stod deop and dim." Ihid. 
« Cf. Job X. 22. " Edda. 

^ " Folde waes tha gyt 
graes ungrine : garsecg theahte 
sweart synnihte side and wide, 
thonne waocjas." II. 122-'5. 



CEDMON AT WORK. Hf 

changes to suit Ms mood. Thus, when discoursing on 
heaven and on the prerogatives of Satan, the line length- 
ens out into most solemn expression : 

*' So fair was he made — so beauteous his form 
Received from the Lord of hosts — he was bright 
As are the bright stars. His task was to praise 
The works of his Lord; his heavenly joys 
To cherish most dear ; their Giver to thank 
For beauty and light upon him bestowed." 

Long might Satan have enjoyed his glory in heaven. 
But he began to plot. The poet read of it in Isaiah : 
" How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who 
didst rise in the morning ? how art thou fallen to the 
earth, that didst wound the nations ? And thou saidst 
in thy heart : I will ascend into heaven ; I will exalt 
my throne above the stars of God ; I will sit in the 
mountain of the covenant, in the sides of the north ; I 
w^ll ascend above the height of the clouds ; I will be 
like the most high." ^ Upon this passage he builds up 
a long argument of plotting on the part of Lucifer : 

'' ' Wherefore,' he said, ' shall I toil? 
No need have I of master. I can work 
With my own hands great marvels, and have power 
To build a throne more worthy of a God, 
Higher in heaven. Why shall I, for His smile, 
Serve Him, bend to Him thus in vassalage ? 
I may be God as He. 

Stand by me, strong supporters, firm in strife. 
Hard-mooded heroes, famous warriors. 
Have chosen me for chief; one may take thought 
With such for counsel, and with such secure 
Large following. My friends in earnest they, 

^ Isaiah xiv. 12-14. Cedraon may also have known the poem of 
S. Avitus — De Spiriialis Hiftiorice Gcsfis — written about 490. 



118 WHITBY. 

Faithful in all the shaping of their minds ; 
I am the master, and may rule this realm.' '* * 

Such rebellious language is severely punished. Sa- 
tan and his adherents are cast into the infernal regions. 
These the poet also describes at length. Here again he 
combines the Scripture account of hell with the ancient 
English idea of it. To his ancestors fire had no terrors ; 
it was rather the cold, dreary, inactive life that made 
hell unendurable to them. Therefore, Cedmon combines 
the two ideas : 

" Each fiend through long and dreary evening, 
Hath fire renewed about him ; cometh then, 
Ere dawn, an eastern wind, fierce cold upon it — 
The dart of tire or frost must rankle there — 
Some hard aflQiction each must ever have." ^ 

In this abode of suffering Satan addresses his com- 
panions in misery. He bemoans his plight. He surveys 
the torments by which he is surrounded. But the most 
unendurable of all is the thought that Adam is to take 
his place in heaven. Here the poet has some truly sub- 
lime touches. He combines, in a rare degree of excel- 
lence, dramatic action with descriptive power. The 
abrupt manner, and the sudden turn of expression, 
couched in the strongest language possible, speak of an 
enraged soul. We miss fiendish acuteness, but we find 
in its stead pride and churlishness enough : 

* Morley's version m A First Sketch of English Literature^ p. 19. 
^ " Thaer htebbath heo on ef}n ungemet lange 
eaira feonda gehwilc, fyr edneowe : 
thonne cymth on ulitan easterne wind, 
forst fyrnum eald symble fyr oththe g^r 
sum heard geswinc habban sceoldon." 



CEDMON AT WORK. 119 

"And Satan spake — he who in hell should rule, ^ 
Govern th' abyss henceforth — in sorrow spake. 
God's angel erst, in heaven white he shone, 
Till urged his mind, and most of all his pride, 
To do no honor to the Lord's sweet word. 
"Within him boiled his thoughts about his heart; 
Without, the wrathful fire pressed hot upon him — 
He said : ' This narrow place is most unlike 
That other we once knew in heaven high. 
And which my Lord gave me ; though own it now 
We must not, but to Him must cede our realm. 
Yet right He hatli not done to strike us down 
To hell's abyss — of heaven's realm bereft — 
Which with mankind to people He hath planned. 
Pain sorest this, that Adam, wrought of earth. 
On my strong throne shall sit, enjoying bliss. 
While we endure these pangs — hell-torments dire — 
Woe ! woe is me ! could I but use my hands 
And might I be from here a little time — 
One winter's space — then with this host would I — 
But press me hard these iron bands — this coil 
Of chain — and powerless I am, so fast 
I'm bound. Above is fire; below is fire; 
A loathlier landscape never have I seen ; 
Nor smolders aye the fire, but hot throughout. 
In chains ; my pathway barred ; my feet tied down ; 
Those hell-doors bolted all; I may not move 
From out these limb-bands ; binds me iron hard — 
Hot-forged great grindles ! God has griped me tight 
About the neck.' " 

And so Satan continues addressing his associates, 
asking them, to stand by him and not fail in the strife. 
" Heroes stern of mood — renowned warriors — they have 
chosen me for chief." The whole passage reminds one 
of the sublimest strains in Paradise Lost. There is less 
reasoning in Cedmon ; he is more objective ; the suffer- 



120 WHITBY. 

ings of his Satan are all physical, except the one pang 
of envy he feels at the thought that man is to be in- 
stalled in his place. Milton is more subjective ; his Sa- 
tan despises the mere physical pain ; it is the agony of 
mind incident upon humiliation and defeat that weighs 
upon him. Cedmon tells us of his hero's pride ; we 
feel the pride of Milton's Satan. This difference is due 
to the respective ages in which they lived. In Cedmon's 
day men did not analyze feelings and emotions ; they 
acted and suffered and endured and spoke out the re- 
sults of their thinking rather than its processes. When 
Milton wrote, thought was more developed ; men were 
more reflective and analyzing, and it was natural for 
them to enter into the springs and motives of action. 

But man must be made to share these hell-torments. 
So forthwith Satan undertakes to tempt him. He ar- 
rives in the garden of Paradise. There are the trees of 
good and evil. " The fruit was not alike. . . . The one 
was so pleasant, so fair and beautiful, so soft and deli- 
cate." He might have life eternal who ate of that. 
" There was the other, utterly black ; that was death's 
tree, which much of bitter bare." There was no mis- 
taking them. Satan pretends to be a messenger from 
God. Adam receives him with suspicion ; tells him he 
understands God's commands, but naught of what he 
says. Satan pretends displeasure, threatens his Master's 
vengeance for the insult offered. Thereupon Adam asks 
him for some pledge or token by which he may know 
him to be sincere ; but Satan has none, and forthwith, 
like a good keeper of his Overlord's place, Adam bids 
him begone : " Therefore I can not thee obey, but thou 
mayst take thee hence." But Satan, nothing daunted, 
" turned him wroth of mood to where on earth's realm 
he saw the woman Eve standing, beautifully formed." 



CEDMON AT WORK. 121 

With her he is successful in his evil design ; for the 
poet takes care to assure us, " to her a weaker mind had 
the Creator assigned." ^ But Cedmon treats Mother Eve 
with great tenderness. He seeks to palliate the evil she 
brought upon herself and the whole human race : " Yet 
did she it through faithful mind ; she knew not that 
hence so many ills, sinful woes, must follow to man- 
kind." However, the deed is consummated, and now it 
is Satan's turn to rejoice : " Then laughed and played 
the bitter-purposed messenger." Such is the story of 
the Fall, as sung by Cedmon. He siligs it as he might 
have sung any domestic episode. We would not take 
it as the measure of his power. But later on, when he 
describes the flight of the Israelites and the destruc- 
tion of Pharaoh, the poet is at home. Then the whole 
strength of his genius breaks out. The old Bersekir 
blood rises in him. He is no longer the historian, nor 
is he the translator. He is the true poet, the seer. The 
vision is before him in all its dread reality. The old 
spirit that used to be fired with such themes as the Battle 
of Finnesburgh, inspires *him to rival that soul-stirring 
poem. We will not attempt a metrical version. We 
prefer transcribing a literal rendering ; it retains more 
of the original fire. See, for instance, with what an 
apparent relish he paints preparations for battle : " They 
prepared their arms ; the war advanced ; bucklers glit- 
tered, trumpets blared, standards rattled ; they trod the 
nation's frontier ; around them screamed the fowls of 
war ; the ravens sang greedy of battle — dewy-feathered. 
Over the bodies of the host — dark choosers of the slain 
— the wolves sang their horrid even-song." This is the 
language of one who has vividly before him what he 

* " Haefde hire wacran hige 
Metod gemearcod." Ccedmon^ Thorpe's ed., p. 37. 



122 WHITBY. 

pictures to the mind's eye. And now the destruction of 
Pharaoh and his host begins. Note the torrent of words 
in which it is told : 

" The folk were affrighted, the flood-dread seized on their 
sad souls; ocean wailed with death ; the mountain-iieights were 
with blood besteamed, the sea foamed gore ; crying was in the 
waves, the water full of weapons; a death-mist rose; the 
Egyptians were turned back; trembling they fled, they felt 
fear; gladly would that host find their homes; their vaunt 
grew sadder ; against them, as a cloud, rose the fell rolling of 
the waves ; there came not any of that host to home, but from 
behind inclosed them fate with the wave. Where ways ere lay 
sea now raged. Their might was merged, the streams stood, 
tiie storm rose high to heaven, the loudest army-cry the hostile 
uttered ; the air above was thickened with dying voices ; blood 
pervaded the flood, the shield-walls were riven ; shook the fir- 
mament that greatest of sea-deaths. . . . The bursting ocean 
whooped a bloody storm the seaman's way; till that the true 
God through Moses's hand enlarged its force, widely drove it, it 
swept death in its embrace. . . . Ocean raged, drew itself up 
on high, the storms rose, the corpses rolled. . . . The Guar- 
dian of the flood struck the unsheltering wave of the foamy 
guKs with an ancient falchion, that in the swoon of death these 
armies slept." * 

This passage has about it the epic ring. It was with 
full zest the poet sang his tale of destruction : " The 
bursting ocean whooped a bloody storm .... the storms 
rose, the corpses rolled." Were we not told that it was 
all the work of the true God, we might well imagine we 
had found another relic of the Vikings in their fierce pa- 
gan days. It is in such passages, in which we pass be- 
hind the poem and its Scriptural basis, that we are en- 
abled to measure the strength of the poet's genius. He 

* Ccedmon, xlvii,, p. 206, Thorpe's edition. 



CEDilOX'S INFLTJEXCE AT HOME AND ABROAD. 123 

not only speaks the old language ; he also thinks in the 
old routine of thinking, with his thoughts somewhat 
purified ; but there is no ideal above that of personal 
bravery or brute force ; anything higher was yet be- 
yond the grasp of the Old English mind ; the spiritual 
element is there, but it is still a foreign element. The 
poet never rises above the sublimities of the Bible ; he 
frequently lowers them to bring them within the com- 
pass of the popular thinking. His heaven is no longer 
the Valhalla of the Teutonic ]N"orth. It becomes a cost- 
ly, well-ordered church : " There the gate is golden, 
fretted with gems, with joys encircled for those who 
into the light of glory — to God's kingdom — ^may go ; 
and round the walls appear beauteous angel-spirits and 
blessed souls — those who from hence depart ; where 
martyrs give delight to the Creator and praise the Su- 
preme Father — the King in his city — with holy voices." 
Had he spoken otherwise he would have been ill under- 
stood ; his genius would have failed of reaching the 
general intelligence. He would not have fulfilled his 
mission. 

YI. CeDMOx's IffFLUENCE AT HOME A:N^D AbROAD. 

The poetry of Cedmon was a revelation to the peo- 
ple. It brought the sublime thoughts of the Bible 
within their grasp. It enlarged their views of Chris- 
tian teachings. It solved in a manner primitive enough, 
but satisfactory for them, some of the questionings that 
must have arisen in their souls on hearing recounted 
the history of God's wonders from the beginning. It 
gave palpable shape and form to many of the mysteries 
of religion. The rebellion of the angels ; the fall of 
man ; original sin, and its consequences, became hence- 
forth no longer vague notions, but rather, living, pres- 



124 WHITBY. 

ent tilings to their minds. Is it not told how the angels 
fought and fell, and how they were punished ? Is not 
their abode of torment described ? And have we not 
the very words of Lucifer ? And do we not listen to 
Adam and Eve discoursing over the apple ? Are not 
the words that Satan spoke to Eve recorded therein ? 
It is all a new mythology, substituted for the old. It 
is a framing in which to group the truths of Christian- 
ity and the history of God's providences. Later, the 
same framing will be slightly modified for a similar 
purpose, and it will be known as the Miracle-play. 
Milton will adopt it in his epic, and the popular mind 
will be educated to regard almost as positive truths the 
imaginary descriptions there given of things unseen. 

Cedmon educated the tastes of the people to an 
appreciation of the sacred Scriptures. From his day 
forth the Old and I^ew Testaments become popular 
with the English. Henceforth they are, in a sense, the 
people's horn-books. And Cedmon's song is remem- 
bered and his name revered for centuries after his voice 
has become silent in the grave. The unknown Christian 
poet, who gives us the extant version of the poem of 
Beowulf, becomes so unmindful of the pagan people of 
whom he sings, that he introduces the Gleeman singing 
Cedmon's song of the creation : 

"And sound of harp was there ; sweet sang the poet ; 
He told the origin of men from far — 
Told that the Almighty wrought the earth — tlie plain 
In beauty bright embraced by waters; 
And. victor-proved, the sun and moon did set — 
Light-giving flames to dwellers on the land ; 
And decked earth's varied parts with boughs and leaves, 
And eke created life of every kind." \ 

1 Beowulf^ i., 180, et seq. 



CEDMON'S INFLUENCE AT HOME AND AERO AD. 125 

Thus it is that the poet preserves the tradition of his 
brother-poet's song. And the historian, in the person 
of the Venerable Beda, crystallizes in his immortal 
pages the glory and the greatness of his name, the love- 
liness and saintliness of his life. Xor is this all. 

In the ninth century his poems became known in 
France. Louis the Pious introduced them. This good 
monarch, not content that the knowledge of the divine 
books be confined to the learned and erudite, resolved, 
and by the interposition of Providence it was so man- 
aged, that all his subjects speaking the German lan- 
guage should become familiar with them. So speaks 
the Latin Preface to the paraphrase. ' And, in qrder to 
show how Providence aided the King, it adds : A cer- 
tain person ordered a man of the Saxon race, who was 
esteemed a great poet, to devote himself to the poetical 
translation into the German of the Old and the l^ew 
Testament, so that the sacred reading of the divine 
precepts be opened to learned and ignorant alike.'^ 
The work of translation was easy. The language of 
Cedmon was kindred to the language of Louis. In 
spite of variations of dialect, the people of one nation 
had but slight difficulty in understanding the idiom of 
the other. Long previously had commercial relations 
been established between them. They were Franks 
whom St. Augustin took with him as interpreters, on 
his first going to England.^ Xo doubt the Preface 

' This Preface is found among Hincmar's letters : Magna Biblio- 
tlieca Veterum Patrurn^ Labigne, Paris, 1654, t. xvi., p. 609. 

2 " Precepit namque quidam viro do gente Saxonum, qui apud suos 
non ignobilis vates habebatur, ut vetus ac novum Testamentum i:i 
Germanicam linguara poetice transferre studeret, quatenus non solum 
literatis, verum etiam illiteratis, sacra divinorura praeceptorum lectio 
panderetur." Ihid. 

3 Butler, Lives of the Salits, ii. p. 2'7S. And F. Schlegcl, speaking 



126 WHITBY. 

wished to pay a compliment to Louis, when it gave him 
the credit of ordering the translation. Be this as it 
may, it adds the more important information that the 
poet sang from the creation of the world to the end of 
the Old and the New Testament, interpreting and ex- 
plaining as he went along so lucidly and elegantly that 
he delighted all who heard and understood. It then re- 
fers to his having received his powers in a dream. " It is 
said that this same poet, while yet entirely ignorant of 
his art, was admonished in a dream to arrange the pre- 
cepts of the sacred law in a style suitable to his own 
tongue." This is evidently a tradition of the legend 
told by the Venerable Beda in the previous century. 
A poem attached to the Preface speaks still more 
clearly of his peasant origin.^ That the poet was 
appreciated, may be learned from the rather fulsome 
praise of the Preface : *' So great was the fluency of 
his works, so great shone the excellence of the matter, 
that his poetry surj)assed all German poems by its pol- 
ish. The diction is clear ; clearer still is the sense." ^ 
And this, be it remembered, was no publisher's adver- 
tisement. It was written after the poems had been 

of the poems collected by Charlemagne, makes this important re- 
mark : " I have little hesitation in saying that I believe those poems 
to have been composed in the old Saxon language, the same in which 
Alfred wrote, and which was spoken by Charlemagne himself, when- 
ever he did not make use of Latin ; for we must remember that the 
favorite residence of Charlemagne was in the Khenish Netherlands, the 
old patrimony of the Frankfs, whose language was originally trie same 
with that of the Saxons." History of Literature, lect. vii., p. 173. 
^ " Incipe divinas recitare ex ordine leges, 

Transferre in propriam clarissima dogmata linguam ; 
Nee mora, post tanti fuerat miracula dicti : 
Qui prius Agricola, mox et fait ille Poeta!''' 

Versus de Poet'x, et inferprete hujus Codicis. Bib. Pair., 
loc cif. ^ Ibid. 



CEDMON'S INFLUENCE AT HOME AND ABROAD. 127 

some time among the people. It only records a fact. 
They had already won popular favor. And, after all, it 
is scarcely less praise than that bestowed on them by 
Beda. True, the poet is not named in the Preface ; 
but the coincidence in the lives of the poets, in the sub- 
ject-matters of their poetry, in the unanimous testi- 
mony to its excellence and influence, is too great not to 
admit of identity. Both are of the people ; both are 
admonished in a dream to sing the sacred truths of reli- 
gion ; both sing of the creation ; both paraphrase the 
Old and New Testaments ; the productions of both are 
universally lauded. It is because both are one, and 
that one is Cedmon. 

And now, it would seem as though his spirit con- 
tinued to live and labor through the whole Teutonic race. 
In France and Germany, as well as in England, Scrip- 
ture paraphrasings became the popular rage. They 
are the drama and the novel of the people. They are 
more. They are not read or listened to for amusement's 
sake. They are pored over and dwelt upon with pas- 
sionate earnestness, to be lived and acted out. Through 
them, the people become familiarized with the thoughts 
and deeds of the Redeemer, and learn to follow them 
more closely. Some of these old horn-books of that day 
have come down to us. We have the poem called 
Krist ; ^ we have a song of the Samaritan Woman ; "^ we 
have a poem on the Last Judgment ; ^ translations of 
several psalms, and a harmony of the four Gospels, called 
Heliand.^ This last was widely known and highly 
prized. There are extant traditions of its poj^ularity in 

' Ottfried, Konigsberg, 1831. ^ Schilter, Thesaurus, vol. ii. 
3 Ibid. 

* J. Andreas Schmeller, Stuttgart, 1830. This is mainly a print of 
the Cotton MS. in the British Museum. 



128 WHITBY. 

Germany and England/ It is written in a dialect to be 
understood by both nations. There has been much 
conjecture as to the authorship. Schmeller thinks it 
was written by an English missionary. Grein wished 
to identify it with that of the translation made in the 
time of Louis the Pious, but with no success. Evidently 
this version is of the ninth century, and the production 
of some ecclesiastic intimate with the Scriptures, and at 
least aware of the apocryphal Gospels ; for he tells us 
that many disciples of Christ endeavored to write God's 
holy word with their own hands in a magnificent book ; 
only four were chosen, and to them were given " God's 
power, help from heaven, the Holy Spirit, and strength 
from Christ : nuiht godes' helpafanhimila'helagnagast' 
craft fan christmP Now, be it remembered that about 
the time this form of poetry became so general, English 
missionaries returned to Christianize their kinsfolk in 
the old homestead ; hosts of them, under Willibrord 
and Boniface, invaded Friesland and Germany, bringing 
with them the light and life of the Gospel and the 
Church. They were not unmindful of the experience 
and traditions of other days in their own country ; that 
which was so skillful a weapon in the hands of Cedmon, 
and Aldhelm, and Beda himself, they did not neglect. 
It may have been the same songs they repeated ; it was 
certainly the same in sense, and in the same spirit, that 
they sang. It is Cedmon who still speaks. 

]!^or is he forgotten later. The sole manuscript of 
his works that is known to be extant is of the tenth 

^ " Poema istud non solum in Anglia, sed etiam in Germania et 
quideni Wirceburgi extare, teste G. Eceardo (in Monum. vet. Quater- 
nione^ Lipsite, MDCCXX,, fol. 42, et in Comm. de rebus Francice or. 
MDCCXXIV., torn, ii., fol. 325), jam pridem inter antiquitatum cu- 
riosos rumor fuerat." — Schmeller, Prefatio Edlforis, p. viii. 



CEDMON'S INFLUENCE AT HOME AND ABROAD. 129 

century, and even that is fragmentary. It is divided 
into two books, and of these only the first is continu- 
ous ; the second is hopelessly broken up. The MS. is 
in the Bodleian Library. It is illuminated. Some of 
the scenes represented are evidently those Avhich, in 
that early day, must have been enacted in the Miracle- 
plays. The tradition of the creation and fall, as pre- 
served in these plays, is that handed down by Cedmon. 
But in this manuscript we must not look for the identi- 
cal poem that Cedmon sang. In passing from genera- 
tion to generation for three centuries, various changes 
must have imperceptibly entered into the text. A ver- 
sion in the West-Saxon dialect might not conform to 
that in the ]*^orthumbrian ; meddlesome scribes might 
occasionally undertake to improve the poem ; others, 
again, might be too ignorant to write it correctly ; and 
so, from one cause to another, while the general tenor 
would remain, special passages might read differently. 
This accounts for the discrepancies in the reading of 
the opening lines of the poem, as found in King Al- 
fred's translation of the Venerable Beda's " Ecclesias- 
tical History," and in the manuscript. ISTo doubt Ced- 
mon would be at some trouble to identify the songs he 
sang with the present transcript of them. But he is not 
alone in this respect. Imagine Tasso coming among the 
gondoliers of Venice as they chant his " Jerusalem De- 
livered.^' And would not Shakespeare and ^schylus 
be equally at a loss to recognize in our modern texts of 
their masterpieces the verses they indited ? The MS. 
belonged to Usher, who gave it to Francis Junius or 
Dujon. This latter it was that assigned the poem to 
Cedmon, and as Cedmon's had it printed in 1655. And 
Dujon had a friend to whom he communicated his liter- 
ary projects ; that friend was then in his forty-seventh 



130 WHITBY. 

year, and was meditating a grand epic ; he saw this 
MS.; no doubt he received a copy of the printed poem 
from his friend ; it decided his subject and its treat- 
ment ; the materials he had collected for a Miracle-play 
he made use of in this new project, and forthwith he 
produced a work of great genius. That man was Mil- 
ton, the poem was " Paradise Lost." ^ 

Here terminates the direct and immediate influence 
of Cedmon. Beyond whatever of expression and allu- 
sion may have been preserved by Milton, or passed into 
our thinking through current forms of expression, that 
influence is for us dead. We may rehabilitate the 
poet's life and imagine the times in which it was spent ; 
but those times are past, and with them the magnetism 
of his influence. It remains but as a record. 

^ Johnson's " Life of Milton," WorkSy vol. ii., p. 33. Recent criti- 
cism attributes the second part of Genesis to a poet of the ninth cent- 
ury. It may be so to a certain extent. The style and treatment are 
more modern and more introspective than the recognized style and 
treatment of Cedmon. But it is none the less the spirit of Cedmon 
that speaks. We have not overstated the genius and influence of our 
first great Christian poet. For a synopsis of the various opinions held 
concerning the division and authorship of various parts of the poem 
ascribed to Cedmon, see Ten Brink, Early English Literature, chaps, 
iv. and viii., and appendix, pp. 371-386. 



CHAPTER Y. 

CANTERBURY. 

I. — Theodoee and Aldhelm. 

Pass we from the north to the south. Leaving 
Whitby, let us go to Canterbury. It is the primatial 
see of England. It is occupied at this time by Theo- 
dore OF Tarsus (602-690). He comes to England in 
his mature years. He brings with him the traditions of 
the East and the Greek learning. He has a copy of 
Homer and other classic authors, and into their beauties 
he initiates the youths who sit at his feet.^ His schol- 
ars become as versed in Greek and Latin as in their 
mother-speech.^ He gave an impetus to Greek studies 
that continued long after his death. Students wrote 
their prayers in the Greek language before they had 
mastered its alphabet.' He is no less skilled in the art 
of healing the body than in that of curing souls. He 

^ Lombarde says that he was shown by Archbishop Parker "T/i<? 
Fsaller of David and sundry homilies in Greek — Homer also and 
some other Greek authors, beautifully written on thick paper with the 
name of this Theodore prefixed in the front, to whose library he rea- 
sonably thought (being thereto led by show of great antiquity) that 
they some time belonged." {Perambulation of Kent^ 15*76, p, 233; 
Edward, Memoirs of Libraries^ vol. i., ch. ii., p. 101). 

2 Beda, Hid. Eccl.^ lib. iv., cap 2. 

3 There is a MS. in the British Museum, bearing date of 703, with 
Greek prayers written in English characters. (MSS. Cott. Galba., a. 18.) 



132 CANTERBURY. 

initiates his disciples into tlie secrets of medicine. And 
with him is a congenial soul, well versed in all the 
knowledge of the day ; that soul is Adeiais". He labors 
with his friend and superior and shares his renown. 
Beda speaks of him as a man most active and most pru- 
dent.' But Theodore has imbibed in a special manner 
Gregory's spirit of administration. He organizes the 
English Church and welds it all the more firmly with 
Rome. He prepares a code of public penance for sins 
committed, that enters into details as minute as the laws 
of the land. He builds churches in better style than 
was previously known in England. He has lead put 
upon the roofing, and glass placed in the windows — 
"such glass," remarks Eddius, "as permitted the sun 
to shine within," ^ In this manner does the Chronicle 
speak of his death : " a. d. 690. This year Archbishop 
Theodore died ; he was bishop twenty-two years, and 
he was buried at Canterbury ; and Berthwald succeeded 
to the bishopric. Before this the bishops had been Ro- 
mans, but from this time they were English." This 
little comment tells more than a volume of the effi- 
ciency of the work done. English youths had been 
trained to the extent of being found worth}'- of the 
highest church dignities in the land. The spirit of unity 
and hannony was abroad. 

And there were other boons brought to England by 
Theodore. He imparted to English youths the tradi- 
tions of the East concerning the Saviour and His dis- 

^ " Viro 9eT[ue stretiuissimo as prudentissimo Adriaiio." ( Vita Ben- 
Bis^ p. 715, Migne edition.) 

^ See Dean Hook's Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury^ vol. i., 
p. 15*7. This book has some merits, but its treatment of Theodore is 
very flippant. It does him evident injustice in attributing to him un- 
orthodox opinions on the sacrament of penance. 



TIIEODOEE AND ALDKELM. I33 

ciples. He taught them the unwritten law of that mys- 
terious land. And he encouraged them to transcribe 
it in their own language, and after their own fashion. 
Among his disciples none was more promising than 
Aldhelm (656-719). 

Maildulph, "a Scot, as they say, by nation, a phi- 
losopher by erudition, and a monk by profession," ^ 
settled in the place now called after him Malmesbury. 
He was poor in this world's goods ; but in their stead he 
possessed learning and zeal in abundance. Among his 
first disciples was Aldhelm. The reputation of the 
school at Canterbury under the management of Adrian 
attracted the young Englishman thither ; and, after per- 
fecting himself in all the learning taught there, he re- 
turned to the poor abode of his first master, obtained a 
grant of the land on which it stood, applied his ample 
patrimony to the building of a monastery, and devoted 
his noble life to the savins: of souls. He soon became 
abbot, and was afterward made bishop. He was the 
bosom friend and counselor of Ini and his pious queen. 
He was a man of varied accomplishments : a linguist 
knowing Latin and Hebrew, and so versed in Greek 
that Faricius tells us he wrote and pronounced Greek 
like the Greek nation ; a musician as well ; and William 
of Malmesbury says he had so fully imbibed the liberal 
arts that he was wonderful in each of them and unri- 
valed in all. But Aldhelm was above all a poet. He 
delighted in scattering figures and studied phrases over 
everything he said. He frequently degenerates to tur- 
gidity in his Latin works. This in a great measure is a 
fault of his age. Men regarded learning with a certain 
awe. They rejoiced in overcoming difficulties ; they 

^ William of Malmesbury, History of the Kings of England^ b. i., 
ch. ii., p. 28. 



134 CANTERBURY. 

looked not to results ; they were content with the new 
thought, the new form of expression, as is the child 
with the new bauble. Therefore it is that Aldhelm's 
standard of excellence consists in making fantastic ar- 
rangements of speech and overcoming verbal technical- 
ities. He has all the figures of rhetoric on his fingers' 
ends. He writes a treatise on the subject. He has a 
technical name for every word he pens and every ex- 
pression he uses. He is a master-mechanic in the art 
of constructing sentences. And he knows it. Here is 
his sign-board : " The leaky bark of our feeble inge- 
nuity, shaken by the whirlwind of a dire tempest, may 
attain late its port of silence by laborious rowing of the 
arms ; yet we trust that the sails of our yards, swelling 
with the blasts of every wind, will, notwithstanding 
their broken cables, navigate happily between the Scyl- 
las of solecism and the gulf of barbarism, dreading 
the rocky collisions of vain-glory and the incautious 
whirlpool of self-love." ^ This style was admired, and 
Aldhelm was regarded as the most accomplished writer 
of his day. His poetic style is more subdued. And 
though he invents for himself all manner of difiiculties, 
he is still over florid. However, matter makes up for 
manner. Aldhelm is the knight of virginity. It is the 
theme nearest his heart. He writes on it in prose ; he 
sings its praises in verse : 

" See how the lilies deck the fruitful furrow ; 
And blusheth on its thorny bush the rose, 
Which crowns the victor-wrestler and becomes 
The garland for the winner in the course: 
So purity, subduing rebel nature, 
Wins the fair diadem which Christ awards." " 

* Apud Turner, History of England^ vol. iii., p. 405. 
^ Lib. Lx., De Laude Virginum. 



THEODORE AND ALDHELII. I35 

This is strange language for a descendant of the wor- 
shipers of Frigga. Could his ancestors rise in their 
graves they would stand agape with wonder. And still 
this poem was not merely understood in Aldhelm's day ; 
it was admired ; the reading of it led a queen to em- 
brace the state he extolled so eloquently/ 

But this elegant scholar is not content with writing 
Latin poems for learned nuns.'* He also ministers to the 
wants of the people. His heart beats in sympathy with 
them ; he yearns to see them elevated into a more re- 
fined and more spiritual atmosphere ; he knows the power 
of poetry over their slow-moving intelligences ; he ap- 
plies the gift with which he has been endowed, and sings 
for them in their mother-speech. Forgetting his learn- 
ing, he brings himself down to the level of those chil- 
dren in intellect, and makes use of language and expres- 
sion within their grasp. Forgetting bis dignity, he 
stands on a bridge and sings for them hymns so sweet 
and impressive that two centuries later — in the days of 
Alfred — they still linger in the popular memory. What 
these hymns were we may best learn from the specimens 
that have come down to us from the school of Theodore 
and Adrian. One of them has been attributed to Aid- 
helm by Jacob Grimm. That it belongs to his age, and 
that it is of his school, is certain.' 

^ Cuthburga. William of Malmesbury, History of the Kings of 
England, § 35. 

2 See Lingard's Anglo-Saxon Antiquities, ch. x., p. 189. 

3 It is also highly probable that the original MSS. of his English 
poems were destroyed when the Malmesbury Library was sacked and its 
valuable contents scattered. " An antiquary who traveled through 
that town many years after the dissolution, relates that he saw broken 
windows patched up with remnants of the most valuable MSS. on vellum, 
and that the bakers had not even then consumed the stores they had ac- 
cumulated, in heating their ovens." (Apud Maitland, Dark Ages, p. 281.) 



136 CANTEKBURY. 



II.— The Poem op Andeeas. 

That poem is called Andreas.^ It is a legend of St. 
Andrew and St. Matthew. The pious curiosity of the 
first Christians naturally asked what became of the apos- 
tles, and their imaginations soon filled in the details his- 
tory failed to give. They became the themes of a new 
epic cycle. 

Each apostle traveled into distant lands, and worked 
miracles, and converted the people, and became a hero 
in the land of which he was an apostle. It was a new 
conquest of the world. And so it had its poets. An 
episode of this cycle is Andreas.^ St. Matthew, with 
his disciples, is taken prisoner by a cannibal people called 

^ Text : It is found in the MS. discovered by Blume in Vereelli, in 
1836. Jacob Grimm publisiied it with notes and introduction in 1840. 
Ill 1853, J. M. Kemble edited it for the ^Ifric Society. Eemble is dis- 
posed to place the poem in the eleventh century. But though his schol- 
arship is unquestionable, he is so very arbitrary in his speculations 
that his critical judgments have to be taken with caution. I am dis- 
posed to place it in the eighth century for these reasons : 

1. The poem is based upon a Greek MS. called Upd^eiS 'Aj/Speou Koi 
Mardala, and after the eighth century the study of Greek died out in 
England. This Greek MS. may be seen in the Bibliotheque Nationale 
at Paris. 

2. The old epic form of expression is too predominant for any pe- 
riod later than the eighth cAitury, 

3. When the poet becomes personal, he speaks of his own style in the 
same depreciatory manner which we have already seen Aldhelm use. 

4. It is evident that the original legend must have been introduced 
by Theodore or Adrian. Their disciples learned it, and who more apt 
than Aldhelm ? If not Aldhelm, then most assuredly Cynewulf. Ten 
Brink ascribes it to Cynewulf. Dr. Fritzsche attributes it to a poet of 
the school of Cynewulf {Anglia, ii, pp. 441-496). 

^ "The Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti^ published by Fabri- 
cius, contains a brief abstract of this legend." (T. Arnold, Manual 
of English Literature, 4th ed., p. 12.) 



THE POEM OF ANDREAS. I37 

Mermedonians. St. Andrew is warned by a voice from 
heaven to go to Ms aid. At first he raises objections ; 
but being reassured that all would be well, he resolves 
upon setting out : 

"Then was the errand to the noble champion 
Proclaimed- in the town : not slack was his intent, 
But steadfast, hard, and noble-minded he 
In his great work ; no skulker from the battle ; 
Ready lor war; to do God's battle stout, 
And bold in thought, he went at break of day 
Across the sand-hills to the seashore, 
His thegns with him — upon the sand they went. 
The ocean sounded, loud the sea-streams dashed ; 
He hopeful grew when on the strand he found 
A ship wide-bosomed. Came resplendent morn, 
Of beacons brightest hastening o'er the waves ; 
From out the darkness heaven's candle shone 
Holy o'er the lake-floods." ^ 

The peaceful Andrew is made a war-beast, a chief 
with his following. It is the old epic casing in which is 
put the simple thought that he prepared and went down 
to the seashore. A boat is in readiness manned by no less 
personages than the Deity and two of his angels. " Near 
the sea-warder, then sat himself the holy one — noble by 
the noble. Never heard I that in a comelier ship laden 
with lofty treasures men sat, glorious kings, beauteous 
thegns." ^ This is a reminiscence of the saga of Woden 
playing the ferryman to deliver men from danger. A 
storm arises ; ocean roars ; the abyss is excited, deeply 
vexed. It is proposed that the followers of Andrew go 
to the land and await his return. But like true thegns 
they prefer to share his dangers. " We shall be odious 

* Codex Vercellensis, ed. Kemble, p. 15. 
^ Ibid., p. 21. 



138 CANTERBUKY. 

in every land — hateful to the people." ^ This we have 
seen to be one of the first principles instilled into the 
English youth. Andrew and his companions fall asleep, 
and in the morning find themselves lying on the beach 
in Mermedonia. Unseen he enters the city : " The man 
famous of mood stepped on the street ; the road directed 
him ; none of men might recognize — none of the sin- 
ful see — him ; the Lord of triumphs had upon the plain 
fenced the dear chieftain with his protection." ^ Here 
is the work of the mythical tarn-cap without the name. 
Thus protected he comes to the prison. The seven 
guards drop dead : " Death destroyed them all ; power- 
less they fell ; the death-rush clutched them, a sword- 
bloody hero." ^ Easily might we imagine that it is an- 
other Grendel who is playing havoc. The traditional 
epic style clings throughout to the descriptions. An- 
drew's touch opens the prison-door. Hear how the poet 
tells it : " Soon he attacked the door through hand-touch 
of the Holy Ghost, and entered there, mindful of valor, 
the man a war-beast." The Christian narrative and the 
heathen wording are distinctively visible. Andrew en- 
ters. Matthew is rejoiced to see his bosom-friend : " Each 
clasped the other in his arms ; they kissed and embraced 
each other." Matthew and his companions are released, 
and, like the Israelites of old, pass out of the town under 
a pillar of cloud. We are told their number. It was 
two and a hundred and forty and women besides. Here 
ends the first part of the story. 

And now comes the hour of trial for Andrew. The 
people expect to feast on the prisoners. Rage seizes them 

* Codex VercellensiSj p. 23. ^ Ibid., p. 67. 

2 " Ealle swylt fornam, 
Druron domlease, deathraes forfeng, 
Hseleth heorodreorig " {U. 1988-'91). 



THE POEM OF ^\:N'DREAS. I39 

when they realize their disappointmeut. But they must 
have human food. So they cast lots among themselves. 
The lot falls upon an old man ; but he gives them his 
son in his stead. Andreas pities the youth, and j^rays 
to God for him. Him God defended " holy from above 
against the heathen peojDle ; he commanded the weapons 
of the men, likest unto wax, in the onset to melt away." ^ 
So in Seowidf, the good sword of the hero had no effect 
upon the monster. A demon reveals Andrew to the 
people. In their rage they seize and drag him among 
the "mountain dens and along the streets paved with 
stones of many colors." Wounded and exhausted, he 
is thrown into prison, and then a cold winter's spell sets 
in. Here is the poet's description : " Snow-bound the 
earth with winter-casts, cold grew the storms with hard 
hail-showers ; and rime and frost, hoary warriors, locked 
up the dwellings of men. . . . Frozen were the lands ; 
with cold icicles shrunk the water's might ; over the 
river-streams the ice made a bridge, a pale water-road." 
Here is more than personation. " Rime and frost, hoary 
warriors" : these were real gods in the Northern my- 
thology.'^ But Andrew suffers not ; his wounds are 
healed before morning, as were the wounds of the he- 
roes of old in the Northern sagas ; and from the blood 
he lost sprung up blooming bowers. " Then looked 
behind him the dear champion ; ... he saw blowing 
bowers stand, laden with blossoms, where before his 

^ J. Grimm, Andreas tend Elcne, p. 34. 

2 " Frost the old 2s orse seer discerns to be a monstrous, hoary JiJtun, 
the giant TJirym or Hrym. . . . Rime was not then, as now, a dead 
chemical thing, but a living Jotun or devil ; the monstrous Jotun Rime, 
drove home his horses at night, sat 'combing their manes' — which 
horses were Hail-clouds or fleet Frost-windsy (Carlyle, Heroes and 
Hero- Worship.) 
7 



140 CANTERBURY. 

blood had spilled." His virtues and liis miracles finally 
triumph. The Mermedonians are converted ; they now 
hold him in honor and veneration. But Andrew, after 
confirming them in the faith, and appointing a bishop 
over them, departs to his own country. 

Here ends the story as told in this old poem. The 
diction is pure, the descriptions are labored ; the poet 
evidently looks to his style. He even calls our atten- 
tion to it ; or rather, he calls the attention of the two 
whose good pleasure he especially consulted in writing 
the poem : " Yet shall ye two, in little bits, further recite 
a portion of my sayings." ^ The two here referred to are, 
in the opinion of Jacob Grimm, Ini, King of Wessex, 
and his Queen Ethelburga, of whom Aldhelm was the 
friend and counselor.^ 

HI. C YNE WULF. 

Another poet of the same school, whose works have 
come down to us, is Cynewulf. " He was," says 
Grimm, " a contemporary, probably a pupil, of Aid- 
helm's." ^ After the example of his master in his Latin 
poems, he distributes the letters of his name throughout 
his English poems in Runic characters. After his exam- 
ple also, Cynewulf writes riddles. We know nothing of 
Cynewulf except what little he reveals to us in his 

' " Hwgethre git sceolon 
Lytlum sticcum leoth worda dael 
Furthur reccan." (1. HSY.) 
* Kemble here objects that the word git^ ye two, is not the dual form. 
He translates the expression thus : " Yet will I still, in little fragments, 
words of song relate." But Mr. T. Arnold, whose knowledge of Old 
English is unquestionable, thus renders it : " Yet must ye two, in little 
pieces, further con over a portion of my verses." (Man. Eng. Lit.^ p. 14.) 
3 Cynewulf war wohleinzeitgenoss,vielleicht ein schiiler Aldhelms." 
(^Andreas und Elcne^ Vorrede, 21.) 



CYNEWULF. 141 

works. From that little we infer that in his youth he 
had been wild : " I was stained with my deeds, bound in 
my sins " ^ ; that misfortunes of one kind or other came 
upon him: "Buffeted with sorrows, . . . with misery 
compassed " ; that entering into himself he changed his 
manner of life, and was called to the religious state : 
"Till he laid knowledge on me through the glorious 
state, for a comfort to me in my old age ; a signal grace 
the powerful King measured out to me " ; that then it 
was his mind was opened, and he learned the strength 
of his intellect and exercised it in the congenial labor of 
singing of Christ and His saints and His Holy Cross. 

1. He sang the story of the finding of the Holy 
Cross by St, Helena. This poem is called Elene.^ The 
poet tells us that he had well digested the subject as 
he found it in books before putting it in English song : 
"iSTot once alone, but often, had I the tree of glory 
in remembrance, ere I about the bright beam had re- 
vealed the miracle, as in the courses of events I found 
in books announced concerning that beacon of vic- 
tory." ' The story is taken from a legendary Life of 
Cyriacus.*' But the poet digresses frequently from 
the original. Constantine is about fighting a battle. 
The night previous to the engagement he has a dream 
in which he sees the holy Rood. He consults his wis- 
est men upon the meaning of his dream. A Christian 
among them explains to him the mystery of the cross. 
Forthwith he has the cross inscribed on a banner. 

^ Wene, Codex Vercellcnsis, canto xv. 

^ Text : 1. Grimm, in the same volume with the Andreas. 2. Kem- 
ble, in his edition of the Codex Vercelleniiis. 3. Grein's AngelsdcMi- 
schen Foesie, b. ii. Kent : Elenc, 1889. This text is based upon the 
editions of Zupitza and WUlkcr. ^ Ibid., canto xv. 

^ See Acta Sanctorum, May 4th, and Kemble's Introduction to the 
Yercelli Book. 



142 CANTERBURY. 

It strikes terror in the enemy, though tenfold the num- 
ber of Constantine's army. The victory leads to Con- 
stantine's conversion, and he receives baptism at once. 
This part of the poem is the most spirited. The de- 
scription of the battle is such as pleased the English 
taste. But it differs in no essential from the battle- 
scenes in the older epic cycles. The same traditional 
accompaniments are found : " The trumpeters blew loud 
for the army ; the raven rejoiced in the work ; the eagle, 
dewy-feathered, beheld the expedition ; the wolf in the 
woods raised his song over the raging battle." ^ The 
rest may be read in substance in Cedmon's Paraphrase. 
Constantine then commands his mother to proceed to 
Judea with a troop of warriors to find where is hidden 
the true Cross. Here the poet gives more of the old 
traditional descriptions. Men and arms and the sea are 
all painted as we found them in JBeowulf. The one 
new element in the picture — Helena — is thus touched 
upon : " Never heard I before or since that on the 
ocean-stream — upon the sea-street — a lady led a fairer 
power." ^ She arrives in Judea, and, calling the people 
together, she upbraids them for their cruelty to the 
Messiah, and sends them awav to choose the wisest 
among them to give her the information she requires. 
At first they choose a thousand wise men ; then from 
among these five hundred are selected. After much 
obstinacy they give her Judas to answer her questions ; 
but it takes seven days' fasting to break his spirit. So, 
going with the Queen to Calvary, he prays in Hebrew 
that the place of the true Cross be revealed, and forth 
with smoke ascends from the spot. The Cross is recov- 
ered ; afterward the nails, out of which is made a bit for 

' Elene, ii., 109-113. Dr. Grnctt has recently issued an elegant 
translation of Elene (1889). ^ jHf^^ \\]^^ 240-242. 



CYNEWULF. 143 

the horse of Constantine, which bit acts as a charm. 
Such is the story of Elene. It is inferior to ^Andreas in 
expression and plot. Still, few subjects were more popu- 
lar in that day. We have listened to Cedmon's song, as 
in all probability emended by Cynewulf, on the glories 
of the holy Rood. Aldhelm identifies Christians with the 
Cross. He calls them crucicolm, or venerators of the Cross. 
2. Cynewulf sang the story of the martyi'dom of 
St. Juliana.' A pagan youth named Heliseus loved 
Juliana ; her father betrothed her to the man of wealth. 
He knew not how she loathed the youth in her mind. 
" To her was awe of God greater than all the treasures 
that in that noble's possession dwelt." ^ She would 
agree to be his spouse only on condition of his renoun- 
cing his false gods. This angers him, and he stirs up 
her father to wrath. "He promised not ornaments." 
But as she remained steadfast, her father delivered her 
over to be put to death, or made to renounce her faith. 
She still triumphs over all obstacles. In prison the 
devil appears to her as an angel of light ; but a voice 
from heaven cautions her against him, and tells her to 
compel him to reveal himself and his doings. There- 
upon he tells how he tempts men, and who they are 
whom he is most likely to succeed with. Such are those 
who do not make the sign of the Cross, " Some whom 
I found without God's token — heedless, unblest — these 
I boldly through diverse deaths with my hands, by my 
devices, slew." ^ He feels ashamed that he has been 
conquered by Juliana : " After this sore revenge, I may 
not laugh at this journey with my comrades, w^hen sad 
and sorrowing I shall render them my tribute in that 

' Tej:t : Codex Exoniensis, edited by B. Thorpe, with translation. 
^ Exeter Book, i., p. 244. 
3 Ibid., v., p. 271. 



144 CANTERBURY. 

joyless home." ^ Here is the popular idea of the devil's 
fear of ridicule, out of which so much has been made 
in mediaeval literature. The MS. is in a mutilated con- 
dition. It tells not the whole story. But after many 
forms of suifering and torments from which Juliana is 
preserved intact, she is finally beheaded. Then, like a 
Teuton viking, Heliseus seeks relief from remorse and 
disappointment in a seafaring life. This part of the 
poem has the genuine Old English ring : 

" This miscreant, perverse of mind, by ship — 
With him his ruffian band — sought ocean's streams, 
And o'er the water-flood a long while sped ; 
But him and his fell band, on the swan-road, 
Ere they to landhad steered, did death destroy; 
Of life bereft were f our-and-thirty men — 
Whelmed in the raging fury of the waves. . . . 
In that dark home — that den profound — might not 
Their money-gifts apportioned from their prince 
Expect they ; nor in wine-hall, nor on beer-bench, 
Might rings receive with gold embossed." ^ 

Thus we find this people still unable to think out of 
the old routine of thought and life they had lived for 
centuries. The names are foreign, but the language 
and the acting and the spirit are all English. After 
giving his name in Runes the poet begs that every man 
"who may recite this lay earnestly by my name fer- 
vently bear it in mind." 

3. Cynewulf sang of the Last Judg'tnent^ In the 
allusion to himself, the poet tells his readers that he 
dreads the doom, " for that I held not well what my 
Saviour in books commanded me." He exhorts all to be 
prepared for that day : " Each man should in his course 

1 Exeter Book, p. 2'74. » Text : Exeter Book. 

2 Ihid.. D. 283. 



2 Ihid., p. 283. 



CYXEWULF. 145 

of years well consider that the Lord of might at first, 
through the angel's word, came to us benign. Now will 
he be earnest when he again shall come stern and just." 
Life he likens to a cruise upon a stormy sea : " It is 
as though we on the liquid flood in vessels journey ; 
through a wide sea on ocean-horses the flood- wave trav- 
erse. That is a perilous stream of boundless waves on 
which here we are tossed through this weak world — 
windy seas over a deep path." ^ The poem begins by 
treating of the destruction of the earth ; it then de- 
scribes the judgment-scene ; the Cross is in the heaven a 
consolation and a hope to the good, a terror to the wick- 
ed ; then the final sentence is pronounced ; and here 
the Saviour recounts His sufferings on the Holy Rood ; 
finally the respective states of the good and the bad are 
described.^ Here is the author's description of the con- 
summation of all things by fire : 

So the greedy guest shall earth pervade; the destroying 
flame shall fill with fire's horror the high structures on the 
earth's plain; the wide-spreading blast, the whole world to- 
gether, hot, all-devouring. Down shall faU the city walls, in 
pieces broken. The hills shall melt; shall melt" the high cliffs 

^ Exeter Book, p. 53. 

^ The poem of the Last Judgment occupies in the Exeter Book from 
p. 49 to p. 103. It is usual to assign all the poems, from the beginning 
to p. 103, to Cynewulf, reading them as one. Thus, Mr. T. Arnold, 
after Ten Brink and others, speaks of them as " Crist^ a long poem on 
the threefold coming of Christ." {Alanual of English Literature, 4th 
ed., p. 14.) I consider the poem of the Last Judgment as belonging alone 
to Cynewulf. The previous poems are more rhapsodical, and seem to 
have been intended as Church hymns. The style of the Last Judgment 
is of an older flavor. Mythological allusions are more frequent. The 
imagery is more heathenish. The only artistic fault is the twofold 
digression on the Rood. The poem, read in this hght, seems to me far 
superior to the author's other known productions. It shows less con- 
sciousness of effort. 



146 CANTERBURY. 

that erst against ocean, firm against floods, the earth had shield- 
ed, stern and steadfast, bulwarks against the waves, the encir- 
cling water. Then shall the death-flame seize each creature, 
beasts and fowls; along the earth shall pass the fire-swart flame, 
a burning warrior ; as of old the rivers, the floods he drove, so 
then in a fire-bath the ssa-fislies sliall be burned; cut off from 
ocean each animal of the wave weary shall die; water shall 
burn as wax. There shall be more wonders than anj may con- 
ceive : how the stun,' and tlie storm, and the strong blast shall 
break broad creation ; men shall wail, shall weep, moaning with 
voices, abject, humble, sad in mind, with repentance afilicted.^ 

Such is the picture the Last Day presented to the 
imagination of this Old English poet. He speaks of 
the flame as " a burning warrior " passing along the 
earth. When Cedmon describes the destruction of 
Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea, he represents the 
guardian of the flood as with one stroke of an ancient 
falchion striking the unsheltering wave, so " that in the 
swoon of death the armies slept." Cynewulf lacks the 
definiteness and the grasp, because he is the lesser poet. 
But his subjects were popular ; he treated them in a 
popular manner, and therefore was he prized in his own 
day. His poems are valuable to-day, not as revealing 
the individual personality of the poet, so much as the 
common form of poetic thought prevalent in his time. 
Men think in the forms of their ag^e and their ances- 
tors. That the most prized is a judicious blending of 
the old with the new. As an instance of this happy 
blending, take the poet's description of the weeping of 
the trees when the Redeemer hung upon the Holy 
Rood : 

Yea, the trees also proclaimed who had with branches 
shaped them when mighty God on one of them ascended, where 

* GesiuTiy a whirlwind or stun. ^ Exeter Book, p. 61. 



THE POEMS OF JUDITH AND GUTHLAC. I47 

He endured pains for need of earth's inhabitants — a loathly 
iieath in Iielp to mortals. Then was many a tree with blood- 
tears suffused under the heavens ; red and thick their sap was 
turned to gore, so that earth's inhabitants may not say through 
wise knowledge how many creatures without feeling perceived 
the Lord's sufferings. 

Here is a remembrance of the myth of all nature weep- 
ing over the death of Baldr. 

lY. — The Poejis of Judith axd Guthlac, and a 
Lovee's Message. 

1. A poem belonging to the same period, and written 
by a greater genius, is the poem of Judith^ But we 
look in vain for the Bible narrative. The heroine is an 
Englishwoman ; Holofernes is an English earl ; scenes 
and incidents are all the scenes and incidents of English 
life. And that English life is the ideal life of the Old 
English fancy. It is a picture of war and preparation 
for war, of f eastings that end in brutal drunkenness, of 
bloody deed and horrid thought. The poem displays 
considerable epic power. The descriptions are graphic, 
and the incidents move with animation. It is invaluable 
as a picture of a bygone life. Holofernes gives a feast. 
" All his fierce chiefs, bold mail-clad warriors, went at the 
feast to sit, eager to drink wine. There were often car- 
ried the deep bowls behind the benches ; so likewise cups 
and flagons full to those sitting at supper. . . . Then 
was Holofernes rejoiced with wine ; in the halls of his 
guests he laughed and yelled, he roared and dinned. 
Afar off might the stern one be heard to storm and clam- 
or. .. . So was the wicked one — the lord and his men — 
drunk with wine, . . . till that they swimming lay ... as 

* Text : 1. Grain, Judith ; 2. Thorpe's Analcda Anglo- Saxonica. 
See also Turner's Hist. Anglo-Saxons, iii., ch. iii., p. 309. 



148 CANTERBURY. 

they were death-slain. . . ." We confine the description 
to the most salient points. The repetitions are mean- 
ingless without the alliteration in which they are ex- 
pressed, and then they become emphatic. Holofernes, 
overcome with drink, in stupor lies on his bed. Then 
Judith accomplishes the deed that is to deliver Israel. 
The poet goes into the minutest details : 

She took the heathen man fast by his hair; she drew him 
by his limbs toward her disgracefully ; and the mischief -full, 
odious man, at her pleasure laid, so as the wretch she might the 
easiest well command. She with the twisted locks struck the 
hateful enemy, meditating hate, with the red sword, till she 
had half cut off his neck ; so that he lay in a swoon, drunk and 
mortally wounded. He was not then dead — ^not entirely life- 
less; earnest then she struck another thne the heathen hound — 
she the woman illustrious in strength — till that his head rolled 
forth upon the floor. Oofferless lay the foul one; downward 
turned his spirit under the abyss, and there was plunged below 
with sulphur fastened ; for ever afterward wounded by worms. 
In torments bound — hard imprisoned — he burns in hell. Af- 
ter his course he need not hope that he may escape from that 
mansion of worms, with darkness overwhelmed; but there he 
shall remain ever and ever — without end — henceforth void of 
the joys of hope, in that cavern home. 

Judith returns to the city with the head of this wick- 
ed one. She is met by the people, and orders them to 
prepare for battle: " Now, I beseech every man of these 
citizens, these shield- warriors, that ye immediately haste 
you to fight. When God, the source of all, the honor- 
fast king, from the east sends a ray of light, bring forth 
your banners; with shields for your breasts and mails 
for your hams, go ye among the robbers ; let their lead- 
ers fall, the devoted chiefs, by the ruddy sword." We 
need not give the description of battle. It is the stere- 
otyped one. We have the usual accompaniments — the 



THE POEMS OF JUDITH AND GUTHLAC. I49 

wolf, the raven, the kite, the eagle, the song of the sword, 
the stern-mindedness, and the fierce hate. " Stern-mind- 
ed, they advanced with fierce spirits; they pressed on un- 
softly, with ancient hate, against the mead- weary foe.'' 
The poem, as we now have it, is a mere fragment. But 
it is characteristic of the English mind, and reveals not 
a few glimpses of genius. 

2. Another, and more agreeable though less power- 
ful poem, is that on St. Guthlac. It reveals a distinct 
order of thought. With the poet, the spiritual and 
the physical worlds are intimately united. Earth and 
heaven and hell all touch one another. Angels and de- 
mons quarrel over human souls. He who lives with his 
hand ever knocking at heaven's door, and hell beneath 
his feet, and saints and spirits around him, takes a far 
diiferent view of life from him who looks upon it as 
a state in which to take all the joys and pleasures with- 
in his reach. Such was Guthlac. The saving of his 
soul was the one object for which he lived. And, that 
it shall not be damned through his intercourse with men, 
he abandons all and retires to a lone spot, there to lead 
a hermit-life. This happens to be a resting-place for 
demons. No welcome guest is the holy man among 
them. They threaten him; they torment him; they 
promise him all manner of goods if he only leaves them 
this solitary spot. But all to no purpose. Guthlac is 
steadfast. The fiends bear him hither and thither. St. 
Bartholomew comes to his assistance and compels them 
to bear him back to the hill whence they took him. And 
then we are told: " The feathered tribe made known the 
holy man's return; oft had he held them food, when 
hungry they flew round his hand. . . . Serene was the 
glorious plain and his new dwelling; sweet the birds' 
song, the earth flowery; cuckoos • announced the year." 



150 CANTERBURY. 

This blending of description of nature witli the narra- 
tive is a new feature in Old English poetry. We do 
not find it in any of the earlier productions. Nowhere 
do we read that earth or sea welcomed the hero or 
was glad at his coming. It is Christianity that sheds 
that gentle light upon nature, and brings it into sympa- 
thy with human feelings. However, if the poem has 
this modern excellency, it also, and in excess, possesses 
the modern defect of moralizing. Again, disease strikes 
the saint. His disciple becomes alarmed: " Then was 
wail and sighing to the youth, his spirit sad, his soul 
grieving, when he heard that the holy man was on de- 
parture bent." Guthlac grows worse: "Death drew 
nigh, stepped with iron strides, strong and fierce sought 
the soul-house„" Finally, on the last day, the saint gives 
this message to his disciple. It is a beautiful thought, 
that only Christianity could have created; and it is 
touching as it is beautiful: " Go tell my sister, the most 
beloved, my departure on a long way to the fair joy, to 
an eternal dwelling; and eke make known to her that at 
all times in this life I denied myself her presence, in 
order that we may again see each other sinless before 
the face of the Eternal Judge, where our love shall con- 
tinue faithful, and we may ever enjoy our wishes in 
the bright city." This is the language of a strong 
mind, holding his soul in his hands, and resolved that 
not even a sisterly affection shall go between him and 
his God. 

3. We have one other instance in Old English poetry 
in which man sends a message to woman. It is not such 
a heavenly message as that of St. Guthlac. It may be 
older than his, but its Runic character places it no later 
than the present period. We have but a fragment of 
the poem to which it belongs. We will call it The 



THE POEMS OF JUDITH AND GUTHLAC. 151 

Lover'' s Message.^ It is the story of one driven from 
his home by feuds : " Him feuds drove away from the 
noble people." He builds up for himself another home 
in foreign lands. And he remembers her in whom his 
affections are centered. He sends a messenger to her with 
a Runic token, asking her to come and live with him. 
The fragment represents the messenger pressing his 
friend's suit. He describes his wealth ; he tells her 
that she alone is lacking to complete his happiness ; 
he assures her that his friend is prepared to fulfill the 
promises which they in early days oft spake : " Yes, 
he who inscribed this beam bade me beseech thee 
that thou, richly - adorned one, shouldst bethink thee 
in thy mind's recess the promises which ye two in early 
days oft spake, when one land ye did inhabit, and 
w^hile ye might in the mead-burghs foster friendship. 
. . . He now bids thee gladly learn to brave the water, 
when on the mountain's brow thou hast heard the 
cuckoo's mournful song in the grove." The tradi- 
tion of calling the cuckoo's lay a sad one is old. "We 
are unable to gather from the poem w^hether the wo- 
man's affection w^as as steadfast as that of the man. 
Be this as it may, the poem is unique in the history 
of Old English literature. It is the only fragment 
giving us the story of man's love for woman. It be- 
trays an absence of passion and chivalry. There is no 
sentiment — no impulse leading the lover to risk his life 
for this object of his affections ; while he expects her 
to abandon herself to the mercy of the sea for his sake. 
All this is in accordance wdth what we have seen to be 
the Old English idea of marriage. 

^ It is found on page 473 of the Exeter Book. 



CHAPTER YI. 

JARROW AND YORK. 

I. — Benedict Biscop. 

With Theodore was Benedict Biscop. He was a 
zealous promoter of the new learniDg and the new 
creed. He made no less than five journeys to Rome. 
Each journey he brought back with him some boon or 
other to his countrymen. Kow it was some valuable 
books ; again some skilled workingmen and artificers ; 
at another time it was beautiful paintings. At first he 
taught the school at Canterbury, but resigned in favor 
of Adrian. He then built the monasteries of Wear- 
mouth and Jarrow. He initiated the English into 
many improved ways. He inaugurated a better style 
of architecture. Instead of the thatched roof, he made 
use of lead. He brought over from France masons and 
glass-makers, whose skill was the admiration of the less 
cultivated English. And with the great comfort of 
light and protection from the weather, introduced by 
the use of glass, he undertook to educate their aesthetic 
sense. They who formerly had no other use for color 
than to paint their shields now had opportunity, through 
the considerate kindness of Benedict, of looking upon 
paintings of sacred subjects. And though the primary 
object was, as we are told, that all, however ignorant, 
might contemplate as through a veil the countenance of 



BEDA. 153 

Christ and his saints, and so be moved to piety, still those 
paintings improved the tastes of the people. He even 
pleased the taste of King Aldfred by bringing him two 
cloaks of silk, for which in return he received three 
hundred and sixty acres of land. Nor did Benedict 
stop here. He also brought from Rome John the Chant- 
er, to teach the Gregorian music. The ceremonies of 
religion grew more attractive, and the people flocked in 
crowds to listen to the new music, and be moved by its 
solemn harmony. The monks of Wearmouth grew fa- 
mous for their good singing ; those from other monas- 
teries flocked thither to be instructed by this celebrated 
teacher. "The said John," says Beda, "not only taught 
the brothers of that monastery, but such as had skill in 
singing resorted from almost all the monasteries in the 
same province to hear him, and many invited him to 
teach in other places." ^ Thus it was that while Theo- 
dore was ministering to men's souls and Adrian to their 
intellects, Benedict Biscop was cultivating their tastes ; 
but in the hands of all three, art and philosophy and 
letters and doctrine were the handmaids of piety and 
religion. Benedict died in the monastery of Wear- 
mouth. On his death-bed his last charge was to guard 
with care the treasures of the noble and rich library he 
had brought from Rome.^ And one was there who 
placed those treasures out at usurious interest, and with 
them gained the wherewith to enrich his own and suc- 
ceeding ages. That one is he who has recorded the 
facts here related — the Venerable Beda. 

n.— Beda. 

Beda (672-735) was born on the property of the 
Wearmouth Monastery. At the age of seven, he was 
1 Eccl Hist, b. iv., ch. 18. ^ Ibid. 



154 JARROW AND YORK. 

placed in cliarge of Benedict Biscop. Under this good 
man's guidance he grew up, knowing little of the world, 
and learning less of its rudeness, its evil ways, and bad 
examples. And as he advanced in years, and his intel- 
lect matured, he became the light and model of his com- 
munity. From Wearmouth he was transferred to Jar- 
roAV, where he passed the remainder of his life. In his 
own beautifully simple style he tells us the story of that 
life : "And spending all the remaining time of my life 
in that monastery, I wholly applied myself to the study 
of Scripture, and amid the observance of regular disci- 
pline, and the daily care of singing in the church, I 
always took delight in learning, teaching, and writing." 
This is the simple summary of his life. It speaks of a 
life of retirement and prayer ; it reveals a monk seldom 
leaving his monastery for any length of time except to 
make an occasional excursion in search of materials for 
his numerous works. And yet there was no subject 
beneath his notice or beyond his grasp. In his twenty- 
seventh year, and while still a deacon, he is already so 
famous that Pope Sergius calls him to Rome.^ Such 
honors disturb not the even tenor of his life. He con- 
tinues his labors in the schoolroom with all the zeal of 
an apostle. He numbers no less than six hundred pu- 
pils who gather round him to receive some share of his 
great learning. He composes text-books for their use 
on mathematics, on physics, on astronomy, on grammar, 
on rhetoric, on dialectics, on meteorology, on music and 
medicine ; he writes commentaries on the sacred Scrip- 
tures after the manner of Gregory the Great, which are 
still quoted with approval ; he translates portions of the 
Bible into his mother-tongue ; he composes pious hymns 
for the people to sing ; he writes the lives of many of 
' William of Malraesbury. 



BEDA. 155 

the great and good men in the English Church who 
went before him ; he records the struggles and trials 
and triumphs of Christianity among his people, and 
their advance in the road of civilization. He is the 
living encyclopaedia of his age. His knowledge em- 
braces all that time has left of Greek and Roman civili- 
zations. He stands out the greatest intellect in the whole 
range of the Old English period. The guiding prin- 
ciple of his life is a sincere love for truth in all shapes 
and under all aspects. He is no dreamer. He lives 
and works for the present, and therefore it is that his 
name has passed into the future. Nor is his eye always 
on books. He casts an occasional glance upon affairs 
of church and state. He exhorts Ecgberht, Archbishop 
of York, in his duties ; he calls his attention to the spir- 
itual wants of the faithful living in remote districts ; 
he denounces those monks who seem to have no other 
intention of entering a monastery than to escape mili- 
tary service ; he regards the wants of the kingdom with 
all the knowingness of a veteran statesman, and becomes 
indignant over those who under pretense of piety would 
defraud Caesar out of his own.^ 

His love for truth will not allow him to rest even 
in sickness. Not long before his death, and when he 
should have had complete repose, we find him pre- 
paring text-books for his dear pupils : " I will not have 
my pupils," said he, " read a falsehood, nor labor therein 
without profit." ^ He is only too happy that he is able 
to work. What he can do for himself, he lets not others 
do for him. " I am my own secretary," he TVTites ; " I 
make my own notes ; I am my own librarian." His truth- 
loving spirit penetrates all the sciences and extracts 

^ Epist, ii., " Ad Ecgberctum Antistitem," Opera, t. v., p. 658, ed. 
Migne. ^ Letter of Cuthberht. 



156 JARROW AND YORK. 

from them whatever it found good and useful. His 
scientific knowledsje is the most accurate his times afford. 
Still, as might be expected, some of his explanations 
are childlike ; others erroneous ; nor can he rid himself 
altogether of the superstitions of the day. He believes 
the comet to portend change of kingdoms, or pestilence, 
or war, or tempest, or drought.^ On the other hand, 
when he undertakes to explain the theory of the tides, 
he rises far above the crude notions of his times, and 
almost anticipates Newton.^ 

But the masterpiece of Beda is his Ecclesiastical 
History of the English Nation. It was for him a 
labor of love, although it took some persuasion to pre- 
vail upon him to begin it. His friends Albinus and 
Acca, the Bishop of Hexham, encouraged him. But 
oace he undertook the task, he spared no pains. He 
was indefatigable in his researches. Northelm, a learned 
priest, brings him from Rome the important correspon- 
dence between Augustin and Pope Gregory the Great. 
He gathers the traditions of the pious and learned mis- 
sionaries who first came among the English people, and 
sifts them carefully. He converses with eye-witness- 
es of events and weighs their statements. He every- 
where brings to bear upon his narrative the great good 
sense that characterizes him. " Thus much of the Ec- 
clesiastical History of Britain," says he, "and more 
especially of the English nation, as far as I could learn 
either from the writings of the ancients, or the tradi- 
tions of our ancestors, or of my own knowledge, has, 
with the help of God, been digested by me, Beda, the 
servant of God and priest of the Monastery of the 
Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, which is at Wear- 
mouth and Jarrow." ^ He speaks according to his con- 

' De Nat. Rerum. ^ Ihid. ^ Ecclesiastical History^ at the end. 



BEDA. 157 

viction. The marvelous and the legendary that he re- 
cords were as searchingly probed as circumstances per- 
mitted, and he only gave that which he regarded as the 
most probable. His was a simple faith that no amount 
of learning could cloud, and that saw in the material as 
well as in the spiritual world the interj)osition of Divine 
Providence. And not only does he write with deep ear- 
nestness ; his is the pen of an artist as well. His soul 
glows with the poet's enthusiasm over the description of 
a favorite theme, and the narrative of a good deed or a 
good life. Sometimes it bursts forth into a hymn of 
praise, as Avhen, after speaking of the miraculous pres- 
ervation of the body of Queen Etheldrida, he sings : 

" Triumphing joj attends the peaceful soul, 
When heat, nor rain, nor wishes mean control. 
Thus Etheldrida, pure from sensual crime, 
Bright shining star! arose to bless our time." * 

Such was the historian whose statements within his per- 
sonal knowledge have never been questioned. We can 
not imagine him distorting a fact for his own private 
purposes, or coloring a narrative in order to bear out a 
preconceived notion. To question his sincerity were to 
prove one's self ignorant of the man. 

The story of his death is well known. It has been 
beautifully told by his disciple Cuthberht. He who so 
lovingly lingered over the death of England's first great 
Christian poet, found one to give a touching account of 
his own. And, as we have described the one, let us 
watch the departure of iEngland's ripest scholar and 
greatest historian. The story is too beautiful and too 
instructive not to repeat. He had been ailing about two 
months. Still he worked hard, teaching his numerous 
disciples and composing books for them. Withal he re- 
■ * Translation in Smith's Bede, 



158 JAKROW AND YORK. 

tained his cheerful disposition. But daily he grew worse, 
and his disciples, with heavy heart, saw his last hour 
approach. Death comes and still finds him at work. 
He is translating the Gospel of St. John into his mother- 
speech. The morning of his last day dawns. " There is 
still another chapter wanting, and it is hard for thee to 
question thyself any longer," said an eager pupil when 
he saw his master's extreme weakness. " It is easily 
done," said the holy man. " Take thy pen and write 
quickly." And painfully he dictated the words, his 
voice growing weaker and weaker. He rests a moment. 
" Dear master, there is yet one sentence unwritten," said 
the pupil. " Write it quickly," said Beda, for he felt 
his strength ebbing fast. " It is finished now," said the 
pupil. " Yon say truly," replied the dying man, " it is 
finished. Hold my head in your hands, for I desire to 
sit facing the holy place in which I was wont to pray." 
After praying for some time, his poet nature burst forth 
in a song in his own tongue on the uncertain lot of a 
departed soul. *' Being learned in our poetry," says 
Cuthberht, " he said some things also in our speech, for 
he said, putting the same in English " : 

Fore the neidfaersB Before the necessary journey 

nenig uuiurtliit no one is 

thonc-snotturra wiser of thought 

than him tharf sie, than he hath need, 

to yrabhycgannse to consider 

ser his hiniongse, before his departure, 

huat his gastae what for his spirit 

godaes seththe yflaes of good or evil 

aefter deoth-daege after the death-day 

doemid uuieorthse. shall be doomed.^ 

* This version of Beda's sole surviving words in his mother-speech, 
is taken by J, M. Kemble from the MS. at St. Gall. He gives it with 



BEDA. 159 

Finally he rendered his pure soul into the hands of 
his Creator, while in the act of singing the praises of 
the Holy Trinity. So passed away the glory of his day. 

We are now dealing with the golden age of Old 
English scholarship. Ecgberht was making of York a 
worthy rival of Wearmouth and Yarrow and Canter- 
bury, ^orthumbria was becoming classic ground. To 
this period especially apply the words of Professor Mau- 
rice : " Schools seem to rise as by enchantment ; all 
classes down to the poorest (Beda himself is the obvious 
example) are admitted to them ; the studies, beginning 
from theology, embrace logic, rhetoric, music, astrono- 
my." ^ We have seen how Beda completes this system 
by adding to it physics, medicine, meteorology, and 
other branches. And not only were men versed in 
learning; we find women versed as well. We have seen 
that Aldhelm writes his treatise in praise of virginity in 
Latin, for a community of nuns. Boniface corresponds 
with English ladies in Latin. Leobgitha asks him con- 
cerning some verses she composed on the Creator — 
"according to the discipline of poetic tradition" — 
which discipline she learned from the teacher of Ead- 
burga.^ In fact, it would seem that the clergy were 
neglecting their mother-speech in their devotedness to 
the language of the Church. In the Council of Cliff, 
held in 747, twelve years after the death of Beda, and 
presided over by St. Cuthberht, King Ethelbald being 
present, it was decreed that every priest should know 
how to explain in his mother-tongue the creed, the 

translation in Archceoloffia, vol. xxviii. The student of Old English 
will notice the peculiarities of the Northumbrian dialect, such as ce for 
e, and even for o in the word ccihthe. The fragment is a precious relic. 

' Philosoplv/ in the First Six Centuries. 

2 Epist. 21, Leobgitha Bonifacio, a. d. 725. 



160 JARROW AND YORK. 

Lord's prayer, the words used in celebrating the holy 
mysteries, administering baptism, and the other offices 
of the Church ; and it was imposed upon those who 
knew not how to interpret and explain in their own 
tongue, to learn.' 

III. — Alcwin. 

From Jarrow we pass to York. Ecgberht is the 
brother of the King of Northumbria. He is also Arch- 
bishop of York. But his greatest honoris to have been 
a pupil of Beda's. He brings to York the traditions of 
Jarrow. His admiration for his great master leads him 
to imitate his manner of teaching. His daily life has 
been handed down to us. It differs from ours, and for 
that reason is all the more instructive : " He rose at 
daybreak, and, when he was not prevented by more 
important occupations, sitting on his couch, taught his 
pupils successively till noon. He then retired to his 
chapel and celebrated mass.^ At the time of dinner, 
he repaired to the common hall, where he ate sparingly, 
though he was careful that the meat should be of the 
best kind. During dinner a book of instruction was 
always read. Till the evening he amused himself with 
hearing his scholars discuss literary subjects. Then he 
repeated with them the service of complin, called them 
to him, and, as they successively knelt before him, gave 
them his benediction. They afterward retired to rest." ^ 
Among the pupils so taught was Alcwin. He extends 
the influence of Jarrow and York to the Continent. 

^ " Interpretari atque exponere posse propria lingua, qui nesciant, 
discaut." {Cone. Cloveshoviejise, Wilkins, vol. i., p. 95.) 

^ " Sanctificabat eos, offerens corpus Christi et sanguinem pro om- 
nibus." ( F^te ^/c, p. 149.) . 

^ Lingard, Anglo-Saxon Antiquities, p. 207. These details Alcwin 
used to relate to his friends. 



ALCWIX. 161 

Alcwin (735-804), from his youth, was devoted to 
learning both sacred and profane. Charlemagne pre- 
vailed upon him to reside at his court, there to estab- 
lish schools and assist him in the educational reform 
he was then digesting for his subjects. Alcwin entered 
upon his new duties with energy. He opened a school 
in the palace, which was attended by the Emperor and 
the principal persons of his household. He revived 
schools throughout the kingdom. He took all possible 
means to encourage study. He revised, corrected, and 
restored ancient manuscripts. His labors extended even 
to the plays of Terence, which he copied.^ Thus he en- 
couraged the classics, but he made them subservient to 
sacred studies. He exhorted his disciples to study " for 
God, for purity of soul, for the knowing of truth, even 
for one's self ; but not for mere human praise^ or world- 
ly honors, or even the false pleasures of riches." ^ The 
whole of France wakened to a new life under his in- 
fluence. Men threw off the intellectual sloth in which 
they had been living, and devoted themselves with ar- 
dor to learning. " Under Alcwin's direction," says a 
cautious writer, " a scheme of education was drawn up 
which became the model for the other great schools 
established at Tours, Fontenelle, Lyons, Osnaburg, and 
Metz — institutions which ably sustained the tradition 
of education on the Continent, until superseded by the 
new methods and the new learning which belong to the 
commencement of the University era.^ He had some 
of his pupils sent to York to take copies of the literary 
treasures there kept. And they brought with them, 

^ Guizot, Histoire de la France^ t. ii., p. 187. 
'■^ Apud Lingard, p. 192. 

^ J. B. Mullinger, The University of Cambridge from the Earliest 
Times to the Royal Injunctions of 1535, p. 13. 



162 JARROW AXD YORK. 

not only the works, but also the beautiful style of 
illuminating practiced at this time in England. This 
style for centuries afterward characterized a special 
school of illuminators on the Continent.' 

Ale win was by nature an ascetic ; but he was also 
a courtier, a scholar, and an educator.'' He was above 
all a devoted child of the Church. He fouscht the 
errors of the day with vigor ; he wrote commentaries 
on the sacred Scriptures ; he prepared a moral treatise 
on vice and virtue. His finger may be traced in the 
Capitularies of Charlemagne. He writes to that mon- 
arch in behalf of the barbarians he has brought under 
subjection, showing him the easiest and most efiiective 
means of converting them to Catholicity. As a writer, 
Alcwin was too steeped in classical learning not to com- 
pose with a certain correctness ; but his style is not ad- 
mired for its ease and grace, though, like Erasmus — 
like all mediaeval and modern polished Latinists using 
a language out of their thinking — he often lays more 
stress upon manner than upon matter. He was not an 
original thinker. His merit consists in knowing how 
to make the most of the writings at his command. In 
his philosophical works he drew largely from St. Au- 
gustine.' In his educational treatises he made use of 

^ "It has been said that the manuscripts which Alcwin procured 
from Enj2;land were the means of forming a special school of transcrib- 
ers and illuminators at Aix-la-Chapelle, which for many generations 
preserved the traditionary style of the Anglo-Saxon ar ists." (Ed- 
wards, Memoirs of Libraries.) 

2 " C'est un moine, un diacre, la lumiere de I'Eglise contempo- 
raine ; raais c'est en meme temps un erudit, un lettre classique." 
(Guizot, Civilisation en France, lect, xxii., p. 208.) 

^ " Alcwin had in his hands some glosses of Boethius, the works of 
the condensers Cassiodorus, Isidore of Seville, and the poetic manual 
of Martianus Capella. Novv, there is nothing in his Dialectics which 



POPULAR PHILOSOPHY. 103 

the Compendiums of Beda. But he was painstaking 
and methodical ; and these are essential qualities for a 
good educator. It is as an educator that he has most in- 
terest for us. He brought his methods from England, 
and these methods continued to be used in France and 
Germany long after his death. There has been preserved 
to us a dialogue between Alcwin and Pepin. No doubt 
it is a specimen of the literary conversations that were 
of daily occurrence in the palace school. And these in 
their turn were modeled after those in which Alcwin 
himself had been exercised by Archbishop Ecgberht 
The dialogue is simple, but it belongs to a simple age. 
The comforts of a court — even of the court of Charle- 
magne — were inferior to those enjoyed at present by a 
family merely above want. In the Capitularies of 
Charlemagne are prescriptions relative to the chickens 
of his barnyard, and the sale of eggs and vegetables.^ 
This is patriarchal primitiveness. 

ly. — Popular Philosophy. 

1. And so in the efforts to solve the mysteries of 
nature, of life and death, of thought and affection, we 
must look for simple questions and silly answers. Still, 
these questions of Alcwin are invaluable as giving us the 
level of the popular intelligence on the ever-recurring 
problems that suggest themselves to the human mind, 

is not found in these works and in the treatise on the Ten Categories : 
he only abridged abridgments." (Haureau, Pkilosophie Scholastiquc, 
i., p. 103.) Haureau shows rare acuteness in tracing ideas to their 
source ; but in justice to Alcwin let us add that these abridgments 
embodied the whole literary tradition of the past. Possessing them 
was possessing nearly all the available knowledge of the eighth cen- 
tury. 

2 Cantu, Histoire Universelle, t. vii., p. 372. 
8 



164 JARROW AND YORK. 

and to whicli it must have an answer, be it right or 
wrong. Pepin asks Alcwin, and is answered in the fol- 
lowing manner : 

" "What is writing? " "The guardian of History." 
" What is speech ? " " The interpreter of the soul." 
" What is it that gives birth to speech? " " The tongue." 
" What is the tongue ? " " The whip of the air." 
" What is the air ? " " The preserver of life." 
" What is Hfe ? " ' A joy for the happy, a pain for the mis- 
erable, the expectation of death." 

*' What is death ? " " An inevitable event, an uncertain 
voyage, a subject of tears for the living, tlie confirmation of 
testaments, the robber of men. . . ." 

" What is heaven ? " "A moving sphere, an immense vault." 
" What is light ? " " The torch of all things." 
" What is the day ? " "A caU to labor." 
"What is the sun?" "The splendor of the universe, the 
beauty of the firmament, the grace of nature, the glory of the 
day, the distributor of the hours. . . ." 

" What is friendship ? " " The similarity of souls. . . ." 
"As you are a youth of good disposition, and endowed with 
natural capacity, I wiU put to you several other unusual ques- 
tions: endeavor to solve tliem." 

" I will do my best ; if I make mistakes, you must correct 
them." 

"I shall do as you desire. Some one who is unknown to 
me has conversed with ine, having no tongue and no voice ; he 
was not before, he will not be hereafter, and I neither heard 
nor knew him. What means this? " 

" Perhaps a dream moved you, master? " 
" Exactly so, my son. Still another one. I have seen the 
dead engender the living, and the dead consumed by the breath 
of the living." 

" Fire was born from the rubbing of branches, and it con- 
sumed the branches." ^ 

' Guizot, Hisioire de la Civilisation en France^ t. ii., p. 191. 



POPULAR PHILOSOPHY. 165 

2. Such was the kind of information that satisfied 
Ale win and pleased Pepin. Nor was it so with these 
alone. It was that on which the common intelligence 
lived in England as well as in France and Italy. Na- 
tions have their periods of intellectual childhood as 
well as individuals. They are as inquisitive as chil- 
dren, and like children rest content with apparent solu- 
tions. They delight in riddles and enigmas. Take the 
catechism which Alcwin had prej^ared for the priest Sig- 
wulf, and which Alfric turned into the language of the 
people.* The answers seldom rise above the literalness 
of the Scriptural texts. Here are specimens : " 8. * Why 
did the Creator curse the earth on Adam's guilt; and 
not the water ? ' * Because God's command to man con- 
cerned the earth's fruits, not the water's ; and because 
God remembered that by means of water he would de- 
stroy the sin that man drew upon himself through the 
earth's fruit.' " Alcwin here alludes to the water of 
baptism, and in writing that answer he evidently forgot 
the reasons for blessing the water so used. Here is an- 
other : " 30. * Why was the tree by which Adam fell 
called lignum scientioe boni et mali, that is in English, 
tree of the knowledge of good and evil ? ' * It was not 
because the tree was intelligent in its kind, nor that 
it knew good and evil ; but in order that man might 
know from the tree that was forbidden him how much 
good is in obedience and how much evil in disobedi- 
ence.'" The reader will remember Cedmon's descrip- 
tion of the two trees, one of good and one of evil. Men 
have been tAvo centuries learning Christianity since then. 
Again, here are some questions on the rainbow : "53. 

* Why was the rainbow set as a pledge to mankind ? ' 

* God set the rainbow as a pledge and safety to man, 

^ Alfric's version of Alcuini interrogationes Sigeuulfi in Genema, 
(Anglia^ vii., 1.) 



166 JARROW AND YORK. 

for a promise that He never after would coyer tlie earth 
with a flood ; for He knew if He did not, that men 
through fear would anticipate a similar flood every time 
they saw such rains.' " This answer gives the sub- 
stance of the Scripture text. " 54. * Why is that token 
seen in the clouds of heaven ? ' ' That all men may see 
it, and that we be reminded in every trouble to turn 
our thoughts to God who dwelleth in heaven.' 55. * Why 
is the token of various colors ? ' * On the token is the 
hue of water and of fire ; that token that is the rainbow 
comes of the sunbeam and of wet clouds in order that 
the earth may be safe : it has the water's color, that wa- 
ter may not drown us all and that we may conquer it ; 
it has the fire's color, that all this world may be kindled 
with fire on the great day.' " ^ So the questions run. 
It is noteworthy that the English catechisms all refer to 
Bible and religious subjects. The craving of the Eng- 
lish mind in that direction seems insatiable. Not satis- 
fied with the sparks itself strikes out, it adopts the views 
of other peoples on the same or like subjects. And so 
we find all other questionings thrown in the shade by 
the popular series called Salomon and Saturn. 

3. This work comes we know not whence. It is a 
strange conglomeration of all lores. We open the leaves 
and hit upon this passage : " Lo ! I have learned that in 
days of yore men wise of mood — princes of the earth — 
contended, struggled about their wisdom. Ill doth he 
that lieth or the truth rejecteth." "" Meeting these words 
we are prepared to assign it a Northern origin. We 
find a continuation of the Scandinavian sagas wherein 
men staked their lives on the answering of a question 

^ MSS. Colt., Jul. E. vii., fol. 228. 

2 Salomon and Saturn, edited by J. M. Kemble for the ^Ifric So- 
ciety, part i., p. 154. 



POPULAR PEILOSOPHY. 1^7 

or the solving of a riddle. The groundwork is of a 
piece with the old heathen sagas. But we go back a 
few pages, and wonder if we are not reading a homily 
from one of the Early Fathers. Hear how the word of 
God is spoken of : " Golden is the word of God, and 
stoned with gems ; it hath silver leaves ; ... it is wis- 
dom of the breast and honey of the soul ; it is milk of 
the mind, most blessed of glories." And this Christian 
element in it is entirely foreign to the English mind. 
It bears the impress of an Eastern cast of thought. 
Such is the peculiar treatment of the Pater-noster. Every 
letter and every word in it has each its peculiar virtue. 
IN'one is more powerful than the Pater-noster. " Saturn 
spake : But who may easiest of all creatures the holy 
door of heaven's kingdom bright unclose in succession ? 
Salomon quoth : The palm-twigged Pater-noster openeth 
the heavens, blesseth the holy, maketh mild the Lord, 
puUeth down murder, quencheth the devil's fire, kin- 
dleth the Lord's : thus mayst thou . . . with the bright 
prayer heat the blood of the devil's wizard, so that in 
him the drops shall rise hurried with blood in the 
thoughts of his breast, more full of terror than the brazen 
caldron, when it for twelve generations of men most 
greedily bubbleth." * And with the Christian, there is 
also a pagan Orientalism. Such is the doctrine that fire 
is the origin of all things : " For there is no kind of 
thing that lives, nor bird, nor fish, nor stone of the 
earth, nor water's wave, nor twig of wood, nor mount, 
nor moor, nor even this earth, but what it cometh forth 
from a kind of fire." " We have seen how the cross was 
venerated by the English people. From an early day, 

* Salomon and Saturn, p. 145. 

'^ Ibid., p. 170. This doctrine was also taught by Heraclitus. And 
Hooker {EccL Polity, b. i., § ii.) attributes it to the Stoics. But it 
originated, perhaps, in Chaldea. 



168 JARROW AND YORK. 

men signed themselves with the saving sign. Tertul- 
lian tells us the practice was common among the primi- 
tive Christians. In Salomon and Saturn, the man's 
body not so signed was in the power of the devil : " And 
when the devil is very weary he seeketh the cattle of 
some sinful man, or an unclean tree ; or if he meeteth 
the mouth and body of a man that hath not been blessed, 
then goeth he into the bowels of a man who has so for- 
gotten, and through his skin, and through his flesh, de- 
parteth into the earth, and from these findeth his way 
into hell's desert." ^ And a question that seemed to have 
special interest for English curiosity was that asking 
the various ingredients of which Adam's body was com- 
posed by his Creator. This, also, is solved in a prose 
version of this mysterious book : " ' Tell me the substance 
of which Adam, the first man, was made.' ' I tell thee 
of eight pounds by weight.' * Tell me what they are 
called.' ' I tell thee the first was a pound of earth, of 
which his flesh was made ; the second was a pound of 
fire, whence his blood came red and hot ; the third was 
a pound of wind, and thence his breathing was given 
to him ; the fourth was a pound of the welkin, thence 
was his unsteadiness of mood given him ; the fifth was 
a pound of grace — gyfepund — whence was given him 
his growth ; the sixth was a pound of blossoms, whence 
was given him the variety of his eyes ; the seventh was 
a pound of dew, whence he got his sweat ; the eighth 
was a pound of salt, and thence were his tears salt."' 
This was taught and implicitly believed for centuries.^ 

' Salomon and Saturn^ p. 149. ^ Ibid., p. 149. 

^ The same question and answer are found in ITie Maistcrs of Oz- 
ford^s Catechism^ which is written in fifteenth-century English. The 
only variation is that occurring in the fifth, which reads : " Of air, 
where-thorough he speketh and thinketh." (Ibid., p. 21'?.) 



roPULAR pniLosorHY. 169 

And not only in England, but throughout the Continent 
of Europe did Saloinon and Saturn, under diverse names 
and in diverse forms, mold the maxims of the people/ 

4. But back of all books, in the Aryan family, is a 
common fund of wisdom bought from experience. The 
oldest collection of such sayings in Old English is to be 
found in the Exeter Book. The editor, Benjamin Thorpe, 
has headed it Gnomic Verses.^ Many of them are com- 
monplaces and truisms. Others of them give insight 
into Old English thought. We are told, " Skillful men 
should in proverbs commune." This is a traditional 
saying from the old Scandinavian mythology, and by 
the ordinary English intelligence of that day more 
honored, we fear, in the breach than in the observance. 
Some of the sayings are based ujion custom, as this one : 
" The earl shall be magnificent in horses and geldings, 
and in always and everywhere bestowing mead upon 
his friends." Some, again, are generalized from expe- 
rience, as this one referring to the choosing of worthy 
companions : " A friendless unhappy man takes wolves 
for his comrades ; a much crafty beast, the comrade 
full often tears him ; there shall be horror for the gray 
one." Or instance this one upon the gadding woman : 
" A rambling woman scatters words ; she is often 
charged with faults ; a man thinks of her with con- 
tempt ; oft her cheek he smites." These are all of a 
piece with what we have learned of the Old English 
character. But we have found the people to be a home- 
loving people. And so one of the most touching and 
beautiful verses in this collection alludes to the comfort 

^ This influence has been traced with great learning and industry 
in the version of Salomon and Saturn which Kemble prepared for the 
J£\iv\c Society in 1848. 

2 Exeter Book, pp. 333-346. 



170 JARROW AND YORK. 

the sailor experiences when he reaches home : " Dear 
to the Frisian wife is the welcome guest, when the 
vessel strands ; his ship is come, and her husband to his 
house, her own provider. And she welcomes him in, 
washes his weedy garment, wet with the sea, and 
clothes him with new raiment. 'Tis pleasant on shore 
to him whom his love awaits."^ And the mention of 
the Frisian wife points to its antiquity. It was a re- 
minder in the new homestead for the Englishman to 
seek his wife among his own people. Tacitus tells us 
of the exclusiveness of the Germanic tribes, and their 
aversion to intermarriage with other races. 

Y. — The Reflective Mood in Poetey. 
1. We are now arrived at a new phase of English 
thought. We have seen the English mind compare life 
to the flight of a bird — in at one door and out at another, 
whence it came and whither it went being equally un- 
known to the lookers-on ; we have found death in its 
thought to be a passing to the halls of Valhalla, there to 
lead a life of riot and mead-drinking. Now that same 
mind stops at the grave. It hai learned to distinguish 
between body and soul. It considers what is to come of 
that body after death. It is such a mood that inspires 
this mournful poem called The Grave : 

" For thee was a house built 

Ere thou wert born ; 

For thee was a mold meant 

Ere thou of mother earnest. 

But it is not made ready, 

Nor its depth measured, 

Nor is it seen 

How long it shall be. 

Now I bring thee 
* Exeter Book, Gnomic Verses, p. 339. 



THE REFLECTIVE MOOD IN POETRY. 171 

TVhere tLou shalt be, 
And I shall measure thee 
And the mold afterward, . . . 

"Doorless is that house, 
And dark it is within ; 
There thou art fast detained, 
And Death hath the key. 
Loathsome is that earth-house, 
And grim within to dwell, 
And worms shall divide thee. 

" Thus thou art laid, 
And leavest thy friends ; 
Thou hast no friend 
Who will come to thee, 
Who will ever see 
How that house pleaseth thee, 
"Who will ever open 
The door for thee, 
And descend after thee ; 
For soon thou art loathsome 
And hateful to see." ^ 

2. And as English thought was pleased to contem- 
plate the grave, so it makes the soul haunt it even after 
death. The last journey of the soul was a long and 
serious affair. Within the first seven nights after death 
the soul was supposed to visit the body, and praise or 
blame it according to its apprehensions of a favorable . 
or unfavorable judgment. For according to Old English 
thinking the soul had to pass three hundred years before 
its lot was finally decided upon. This belief gives rise 
to The SouVs Complaint to the Body : 

*' Befits it well that man should deeply weigh 
His soul's last journey ; how he then may fare 

^ Lonrfellow's translation. 



172 JARROW AND YORK. 

When death comes on him, and breaks short in twain 

The bond that held his flesh and spirit linked : 

Long is it thence ere at the hands of Heaven 

The spirit shall reap joy or punishment, 

E'en as she did in this her earthly frame. 

For ere the seventh night of death hath past, 

Ghastly and shrieking shall that spirit come — 

The soul to find its body. — Eestless thus 

(Unless high Heaven first work the end of all things) 

A hundred years thrice told the shade shall roam." ^ 

Here is evidently a trace of the Hindu and Egyp- 
tian doctrine of the transmigration of souls. It is one 
of the modes of accounting for the existence of ghosts. 
It shows the persistency witli which the English mind 
asked for a solution of the riddle beyond the grave. 

3. A still later poem, which has been added to the 
Old English poetical calendar, called 3fenology, repeats 
the uncertainty of Beda upon the future condition of 
man's soul. It sj)eaks almost despondingly : " The fu- 
ture condition is dark and secret ; the Lord — the Re- 
deeming Father — only knows. No one returns hither 
under roofs, who here may reveal to men for certain 
what is the condition of the Creator, what the glorious 
habitation of people where Lie himself dwells." ^ Such 
are the views of death this people has handed down to 
us. They are grave and solemn. They are congenial 
to its naturally serious thinking. A j)eople to which 
war is a play, whose delight is in danger, and which has 

' TJie SouVs Complaint to the Body, Conybeare's translation ; text, 
Exeter Book. 

2 Menology^ edition of Rev. S. Fox, p. 55. The verses added to the 
calendar proper are evidently by another hand. When Mr. Fox com- 
pares them to a Pindaric Ode, he allows his admiration to run away 
with his judgment. 



THE REFLECTIVE MOOD IN POETRY. 173 

forgotten the halls of Valhalla, must needs question in- 
tensely what lies beyond the grave. ^ 

4. There is a fragment called The Ruin. It reveals 
rare poetical power. It was evidently written by a true 
child of song. But it is not, as has been suggested, of 
a pre-insular date. The rude child of the forest knew 
not the use of stone buildings, his eye was not familiar- 
ized to tower and battlement and steepled splendor. All 
this he learned later. But all this is found in the frag- 
ment. The poet is meditative in presence of the ruins. 
He remembers the mighty ones who once dwelt there. 
He contrasts its present with its former condition : 

Wondrous is this wall-stone, the fates have broken it — 
have burst the burgh-place. Perishes the work of giants; fall- 
en are the roofs, the towers tottering — the hoar gate-tow- 
ers despoiled — rime on the lime — lirim on lime ; shattered are 
the battlements, riven, fallen under the Eotnish race ; the 
earth-grave has its powerful workmen ; decayed, departed, 
the hard of gripe are fallen and passed away to a hundred 
generations of people. . . . Bright were the burgh-dwellings, 
many its princely halls, high its steepled splendor; there 
was martial sound great, many a mead-haU full of human joys, 
until obdurate fate changed it all ; they perished in wide 
slaughter. . . . There many a chief of old, joyous and gold- 
bright, splendidly decorated, proud, and with wine elate, in 
warlike decorations shone ; looked on treasures, on silver, on 

^ The Dialogue between the Soul and the Body was very popular 
throughout the middle ages in every country in Europe. Wright men- 
tions versions in twelve different languages. In his edition of the 
Latin Poems commonly attributed to Waller Mapes, edited for the 
Camden Society (1841), he prints a Latin version, one in Anglo-Nor- 
man, and two in thirteenth-century English. But none of them is as 
early as the Old English version ; and it is no rash conclusion to say 
that it is the suggester of the Latin version first, and through it of all 
the others. 



174 JARROW AND YORK. 

curious gems, on luxury, on wealth, on precious stone, on this 
bright burgh of a broad realm. ^ 

Thus it is that this reflective mood extends itself not 
only to death, but to everything suggestive of death. 
This intense seriousness is the largest trait of Old Eng- 
lish thought. If at this stage it is not productive of 
more fruitful results, it is because the Old English mind 
is slow in its movements. 

^ Exeter Book, pp. 4*76-78. 



CHAPTER VII. 

WINCHESTER. 

Another night of ignorance settled upon England. 
The lights that issued from Jarrow and York became 
extinguished in the ruins of these noble monasteries. 
The Danes came, and during the greater part of the 
ninth century pillaged churches, depopulated cities, out- 
raged monk and nun, and brought in their trail misery 
and barbarism. Their fury was especially directed against 
monasteries and churches. They coveted their treasures 
of gold and silver ; and despising their more valuable 
ones of learning, they made use of books in setting fire 
to the monasteries. Northumbria became a waste. 
Learning was buried under the ruins of the monasteries. 
Men forgot every art of peace. To preserve their lives, 
hunt in the forest, and fight the Dane became their sole 
occupation. They even forgot their Christianity. Con- 
tact with their heathen kinsmen aroused in them heathen 
recollections, and they reverted to their old heathen cus- 
toms and practices. English life went back three cen- 
turies. 

I. — Alfred the Great. 

Alfred (849-901) checks the Dane. After strug- 
gles and adventures more frequent in the sphere of fic- 
tion than in the domain of sober history, he establishes 
his kingdom of Wessex on a secure footing. His next 



176 WINCHESTER. 

step was to repair tlie evils of war. He gives Ms peo- 
ple wise laws ; he sees that they are administered with 
justice ; he becomes the terror of the evil-doer and the 
unjust judge. But he is not satisfied to live for his day- 
alone. He wishes to lay a foundation on which poster- 
ity may build. He finds his people, lay and clerical, 
steeped in ignorance ; he sets about remedying the evil. 
" So general was the decay of learning," says he, " that 
there were very few on this side the Humber who could 
understand their rituals in English or translate a letter 
from Latin into English ; and I believe there were not 
many beyond the Humber. There were so few of them 
that I can not remember a single one south of the Thames 
when I came to the throne." ^ He establishes schools 
and monasteries and convents. But the religious spirit 
has become extinct. He can not get free English sub- 
jects to become monks and inhabit the monastery he 
built upon the Island of Athelney, so he has youths 
brought from foreign parts to be trained in the habits 
and discipline of the monastic life. He works in the 
spirit of a man with large heart and broad views. He 
is not tied down by prejudices of race. From Saxony, 
from France, from Wales he gathers around him men 
of learning and talent, that they may educate himself 
and his people. 

Alfred's love for English song and English story 
was a passion. His mother was a Goth, his stepmother 
a Frank. They both brought with them the traditional 
song and story of their peoples. Their servants and slaves 
used to sing them. From his childhood Alfred had been 
taught them. Later he learned those of his own coun- 
try, and took pride in remembering the poets who 

* Gregory's Pastoral^ edited for the Early English Text Society, 
by Professor Sweet, p. 3. 



ALFEED THE GREAT. 177 

sang both the sacred and heroic songs of his English 
speech. He delighted in hearing his people sing 
them. He had his children taught them. He would 
have every youth able to read English writing. For 
this purpose he studies the Latin language late in life, 
and works written in it that he has learned to prize, he 
turns into English. " It seems better to me," he says, 
" if ye think so, for us also to translate some books 
which are most needful for all men to know into the 
language which we can all understand, and for you to 
do as we very easily can if we have tranquillity enough 
— that is, that all the youth now in England of freemen 
who are rich enough to be able to devote themselves to 
it, be set to learn as long as they are not fit for any other 
occupation, until that they are well able to read English 
writing ; and let those be afterwards taught more in the 
Latin language who are to continue learning and be pro- 
moted to a higher rank." ^ These were views as enlight- 
ened as they were useful. And yet note the modesty 
with which they are put : " if ye think so." 

Alfred translates books not only that children may 
learn to read English writing, but that he may also in- 
spire the clergy with a taste for letters. The Pastoral 
of Gregory the Great he considered a most suitable 
manual for them in their lethargic state. Accord- 
ingly, he translated it. And in his simple, truth-tell- 
ing way, he informs us how he did it : " Sometimes 
word by word, and sometimes according to the sense, 
as I had learned it from Phlegmund my archbishop, 
and Asser my bishop, and Grimbald my mass-priest, 
and John my mass-priest." "^ The teachings contained 
in this book he encouraged by word and deed. Igno- 
rance in church or state had no countenance from 
* Gregory's Pastoral, pp. 6, Y. ^ Ibid., p. 7. 



178 WIXCHESTER. 

him, while he always recognized and advanced learn- 
ing. 

Alfred would have his subjects acquainted with oth- 
er countries and other times. A popular book at that 
day was the Universal History of Paulus Orosius, a 
Spanish priest. He was a friend and admirer of St. Au- 
gustine, and at the latter's suggestion undertook the 
writing of his history. The book suited the turbulent 
times in which it was written ; not less so those in 
which Alfred's life was cast. It is a record of human 
miseries. It recounts all the calamities that bef el men 
from the beginning. But it showed that over all pre- 
sides a Providence. This book Alfred translates. He 
even makes important additions to it. He describes the 
geographical discoveries made by the Norwegian 0th- 
here and the Jutlander Wulstan. Nor does he forget 
the history of his own people. He has the JEcclesiasti' 
cal Ilistory of the Venerable Beda put in such language 
that all might read and understand it. 

But the work he esj^ecially made his own was the 
beautiful treatise of Boethius titled the Consolations of 
Philosophy. It was a work congenial to his thinking. 
He, like Boethius, had known adversity. He had found 
himself more than once helpless and abandoned by his 
friends. The despondent thoughts that occupy Boe- 
thius in the beginning of his work also crossed his 
mind. With delight did he find their solution in this 
book. It was to him a true consolation. Deeply did 
the words of the grand Roman Senator sink into his 
heart. They became one with his own inner sentiments. 
And not unf requently does his thought soar beyond that 
of the Roman, especially when he speaks of the good- 
ness and providence of God. It is an interesting study 
to watch the process by which Alfred, with his imper- 



ALFRED THE GREAT. IY9 

feet aequaintance of the Latin, and his own limited dic- 
tion, endeavored to grasp the refined thoughts of this 
man who embodied in himself all the Grecian and Ro- 
man culture of his day. His ideas strain in the strug- 
gle ; he changes imagery ; he digresses ; he amplifies 
and paraphrases. The myths of ancient Greece and 
Rome are, in his straightforward expression, old lying 
tales — ealdiun leasiun spellum. In the rendering of 
the other works, the royal author had assistance ; 
perhaps his was the least share of the labor ; but in 
every line of this we can trace his pen. It is with a 
certain diffidence he sends it forth. He asks the reader 
to pray for him and not to blame him if he more right- 
ly understands the book than he could ; " for," he adds, 
every man must, according to the measure of his under- 
standing, and according to his leisure, speak that which 
he speaketh and do that which he doeth." ^ And cer- 
tainly Alfred lived up to this saying. His word and 
his deed were in accord with his genius, and that seemed 
unwearied in its exertions. He has his kingdom to 
conquer ; he conquers it. He has to reform its whole 
political machinery ; he succeeds so effectively that to 
him do after-times attribute all manner of improve- 
ments. He finds his people in the lowest scale of civ- 
ilization and social comfort ; he has skilled mechanics 
brought from the Continent to initiate them into better 
methods of constructing furniture and buildings. From 
Asser we learn that he had houses built which were 
"majestic and good beyond all the precedents of his 
ancestors." ^ He patronizes every branch of trade and 
industry. He lives for his people. With a clear con- 
science may he give this testimony of himself : " This 
I can now truly say, that so long as I have lived I have 
^ Proem. ' Asser, TAfe^ p. 68. 



180 WINCHESTER. 

striven to live worthily, and after my death to leave my 
memory to my descendants in good works." ^ He has 
his wish. His name is as revered to-day as it was one 
thousand years ago. He is remembered as an able sol- 
dier, a great statesman, a wise ruler, a lover of learning, 
an author of repute, and a lawgiver. In the laws given 
by Alfred and his successors let us endeavor to read the 
temper of the latter part of the Old English period. 

II. — Spirit of Laws. 

A nation's laws are part and parcel of a nation's 
existence. They grow with its growth, and strengthen 
with its strength. This is the record of English law. 
It is deeply rooted in the English nature. It has grown 
out of its customs. It is the embodiment of the Eng- 
lish sense of justice and liberty. "It is one of the 
characteristic marks of English liberty," says Black- 
stone, " that our common law depends upon custom ; 
which carries this internal evidence of freedom along 
with it, that it probably was introduced by the common 
consent of the people." ^ We have seen how these laws 
originated while the English were still in their Conti- 
nental homesteads. We have seen them bring the same 
laws and customs with them to their island home. But 
Christianity has broadened men's views, and taught 
them to look upon actions in another light and from a 
higher plane. And it is to Christian legislation, and 
not to Roman jurisprudence, that England is indebted 
for the improvement made in her laws at this period. 
And that legislation, in the course of time — slowly, 
almost imperceptibly — tells upon the spirit of the laws. 

1 Alfred's BoctUus, Cardale's Ed., p. 92. 

2 Commentaries^ Intro., § 3, p. 50. 



SPIRIT OF LAWS. 181 

The CouxciLS op the Church influence the old 
customs. They take the people as they find them, mere 
childi-en in their ways. They treat them as childi'en 
to whom it is not enough to speak in general terms. 
They enter into details varied and delicate on all the 
moral duties of the individual. They legislate for nian, 
woman, and child. These details would shock the pres- 
ent public taste ; in modern books they are not to be 
found outside the pages of moral theology. They show 
the great difference between the old order of things and 
the new. But the Councils did good to church and 
state. They gave organic life and growth to the new 
religion. They enforced discipline among the clergy, 
in the convents, and in the monasteries. They estab- 
lished regulations for the laity on matters the most 
personal and private. They issued instructions for 
them. They insisted on their renouncing all pagan 
vices. ^ Nor were kings exempted from their wholesome 
admonitions and exhortations. The marriage relations, 
which in heathen days were almost hopelessly mixed 
up, they by degrees straightened out and ameliorated. 
The strength and efficiency of the very race was threat- 
ened by consangTlineous connections. But the church 
stepped in, placed her ban upon marriage within the 
forbidden degrees of kindred, and thus saved the Eng- 
lish from themselves.'^ The Councils gave unity in faith 
and discipline to the Church in all parts of the island. 
They drew together more closely the ties between Eng- 
land and Rome. The Pope exhorts the bishops ; they 
in turn exhort the clergy ; and the clergy exhort and 
instruct the laity. ^ Christian principles also told upon 

* " Ut reliquias paganorum vitiorum quisque abjiciat." {Cone. 
Ccdchaith, a. d. 785.) 

2 Wilkins' Concilia, L, p. 29. ^ /j^^/.^ i,^ p. 35. 



182 WINCHESTER. 

the laws through the personal influence of bishop and 
king. Thus the laws of Wihtraed were given, in 689, 
in the assembly of the nobles, and in presence of the 
archbishop and a bishop. We are further told that all 
ecclesiastical orders had a voice in their formation. 
We trace this Church influence in the articles relating 
to the fasting of serfs and the keeping of holidays.^ 
Again, to the Councils and personal influence of indi- 
viduals, we must add the work of the confessional, as 
a modifying agency upon the lives and ways of the 
people. For public offenses a long list of penances, 
graded according to the nature and degree of the crime, 
was prepared and published. The Penitentials of Theo- 
dore are the best known. A noteworthy feature of 
these penances is the practice of adding to the fines 
and reparations invariably a rigid fasting. Kow, when 
we remember how sottish the Old English were in all 
matters concerning meat and drink, we can not but 
admire the wisdom of such a regulation. It was calcu- 
lated to mortify the flesh, refine men's natures, and 
make them more spiritual. And thus it was that the 
Church assisted the laws of the state in the wcu'k of 
elevating and civilizing thi3 people. Soon its influence 
told on the spirit of legislation itself. The publishing 
of so many codes at different times showed that a change 
was going on in the body politic. "The very act of 
legislation," says Professor Stubbs, "implies some crisis 
in the history of the legislator." "^ 

The English laws at first entered into details of per- 
sonal injuries. Ethelbirht (d. 616) lays down the 
customs of the land concerning the penalties to be paid 
for wrongs done one's neighbor in his person or property. 

» Cantu Hist. Un., t. vii., p. 361. 

2 Constitutional History of England^ vol. i,, p. 194. 



SPIRIT OF LAWS. 183 

The laws deal entirely with stealing, fighting, wound- 
ing, and killing. " If one man slays another, let him 
pay twenty shillings at the opening of the grave, and 
forty days after let him pay all the compensation-money 
to the family.* ... If the fore finger is cut off, eight 
shillings atonement ; if the middle finger, four shillings ; 
... if the little finger, eleven shillings. . . . For each 
nail, a shilling." ^ So, for each member of the body in- 
jured is there a fine proportionate to its usefulness. The 
laws of Ini take a somewhat wider scope. ^ They pro- 
tect the wife and children against the injustice of the 
husband : " If a man steal from his wife and children 
that which may be necessary for them, let him pay a fine 
of sixty shillings." * Alfred's laws still further protect 
individual liberty. His last will and testament was that 
the English be as free as their thoughts. But he knew 
that there was no liberty without law. Accordingly, 
he labored to bring justice, and with it liberty, to the 
door of each free-born Englishman.^ And with no na- 
tion in Europe was there greater liberty than with Eng- 
land. Thus, while gilds were encouraged and recog- 
nized .by English law, they were suppressed and perse- 
cuted under Charlemagne and his successors. But we 
must remember that England is the native soil of the 
gild. It grew there out of the nature of things. When 
the blood ties which we found to have been the first so- 
cial bond became weakened, then was formed the peace- 
gild. Men banded together and pledged themselves to 
mutual protection. Under Ealhhere (860-866) there is 

' Ethelbirhtes Domds, § 22. 

2 Jbid., §§ 54, 55. 

' Ini abdicated and went to Rome in 725. 

* I)7es Ci/ninges Domus, § 7. 

^ Blackstone, Commeniarics, ch. iv., p. 27. 



184 WIXCHESTER. 

a deed of a grant of land signed by Aethelhelm and 
Cneatha, gildsmen.' Gilds became a necessity when 
the Danes began to grow formidable throughout the 
land. Alfred's laws show them to have been firmly estab- 
lished in his day. " If," says one article, " a man kin- 
less of father's kin fight and slay a man, and then if he 
have mother's kin, let them give a third share of the weri- 
geld; a third share, his gild-brethren ; for a third share 
let him flee. If he have no mother's kin, let his gild- 
brethren pay half ; for half let him flee." ' With time 
this spirit of liberty extends itself to the slaves. Athel- 
STAis^ (940) made them mutually responsible for crime 
on the same basis of order as that extended to the free 
class. But we can best recognize the source of this 
principle when we remember that at the Council of 
Chalcuith the bishops bound themselves to manumit all 
the slaves on their estates after their death. The spirit 
of Edgar's laws^ is still more Christian. Calumny 
was treated with rigor. The guilty one was condemned 
to have his tongue cut out. The wisdom of Dunstan is 
traceable in every line of them. And as time advances 
the tone of promulgation becomes still more ameliorated. 
Ethelred strikes a new note when he writes : " And 
the ordinance of our. Lord and his witan is that Chris- 
tian men for all too little be not condemned to death ; 
but in general let mild punishments be decreed for the 
people^s need ; and let not for a little God's handiwDrk 
and His own purchase, which He dearly bought, be de- 
stroyed." This is the first censure cast upon the old 
laws for condemning men to death " for all too little." 
It is a pleading for life. It is a recognition of the 

' Fiicsirailes of Anglo-Saxon MSS. in Library of Canterbury, No. X. 
2 Alfred's Laws, §§ 27, 28. 
2 Edgar died in 975. 



SPIRIT OF LAWS. 185 

origin and dignity of man ; and this in spite of the dis- 
orders of the day and the growing degeneracy among 
all classes. For we are now arrived at a period when 
England is deeply sunk in barbarism only little less than 
that from which she was drawn by Christian influence. 
The Dane, in his daily habits, was more civilized than 
his English cousin. He seems to have been, for that 
day, scrupulously neat in his person. The monk of 
Ely, among various accusations, mentions that accord- 
ing to the custom of his country he combed his hair 
daily, bathed on Saturdays, and often changed his 
clothes.^ But he gave England more than the sol- 
dier's red coat. Cxut centralized the government of 
the country and ruled it with wisdom. His digest of 
laws is based upon the ancient customs. He reproduces 
whatever is good and equitable in the various codes 
gone before. He lays stress upon the principle of jus- 
tice. He would have every man do as he would be done 
by, in confirmation of which he invokes the authority 
of the Lord's Prayer. " The first thing I wish is, that 
man support justice and diligently suppress injustice, 
and that he weed out and root up every unright as best 
he can out of this land and establish God's right, and 
henceforth consider each one, poor as well as rich, 
worthy of Folk-right, and let him be judged with a 
just judgment." * While Ethelbirht simply lays down 
the law, and Alfred backs it up with the Decalogue, 
Cnut hints at the basis of justice upon which law stands. 
Such is the nature of the growth and development of 
Old English law. It indicates in its own way the life 
and thought of the people from which it came. That 
thought we find broadening and deepening with time. 

* Hist. Eliensis, apud Gale, p 54Y. 
^ Cnut's Secuhr Laws, § 1. 



186 WINCHESTER. 

The people have become rooted to the new homestead. 
In consequence, a feeling akin to a sentiment of nation- 
ality sprang up. How far that feeling found expression 
it remains for us now to inquire. 

III. — The Sentiment of Nationality. 

1. This sentiment we find nowhere developed to a 
passion in the Old English breast as it was in that of the 
Kelt. His mind was less romantic and more prosaic. 
That which came home to his selfishness touched him 
most deeply.^ When Columkill mourns over his exile 
in the most impassioned strains, he expresses his love for 
his native land, not on account of the ease and comfort 
that were his, but simply for its own sake : " My foot 
is in my little boat, but my sad heart ever bleeds. 
There is a gray eye which ever turns to Erinn ; but 
never in this life shall it see Erinn, nor her sons, nor 
her daughters. From the high prow I look over the 
sea, and great tears are in my gray eyes when I turn 
to Erinn — to Erinn, where the songs of the birds are so 
sweet, and where the clerks sing like the birds ; where 
the young are so gentle, and the old so wise ; where 
the great men are so noble to look at, and the women 
so fair to wed." ^ This is the pure ideal sentiment of 
nationality. We seek it in vain in Old English poetry. 

Take the poem known as the Wa?iderer. The faith- 
ful retainer away from home bewails his beloved lord. 
It is a touching record of friendship, but there is no 
word of regret for country : 

^ " The poetic lamentations of the chronicler over the dead kings 
may perhaps express the feeling of the churchmen and the courtiers, 
but have nothing to answer to them in the case of the provincial 
rulers." — Stubbs's Constitutional History of England^ vol. i., p. 213. 

2 Apud Montalembert, Monks of the West^ vol. iii., p. 148. 



THE SENTIMENT OF NATIONALITY. 187 

" For that knows he who thus must long forego 
The loving counsel of his dear lord ; then oft 
Both sorrow and sleep bind the poor solitary ; 
He dreams he clasps and kisses his lord, 
And lays his hand and head upon his knee, 
As when he whilom enjoyed the gift-stool. 
Then awakens again the friendless wanderer, 
Sees before him the fallow waves, 
The sea-birds bathe and spread their feathers; 
Sees fall the snow and frost-rime mingled with hail. 
In grief for the loved one, sorrow grows anew, 
And memories of kindred pass over his mind ; 
He Joyfully greets them, gazing eagerly on them." * 

There is here a total absence of the sentiment that 
cries out, " Evermore shall my country be all my love." * 

2. But the book most characteristic of the Eng- 
lish genius is the Old English Chronicle. There runs 
through it an undercurrent of feeling dictated by a 
love for recounting English deeds and an admiration 
for English pluck. It gives a plain, unvarnished tale. 
Things are stated as they happened. It is mostly a 
book of names and dates dryly entered ; occasionally 
there is a piece of fine description ; rarely a touching 
expression, and in a few instances the chronicler bursts 
forth into a poetical strain. The Chronicle is an ancient 
and a precious document. It was a general custom 
among the Teutonic nations to keep a record of their 
principal deeds. This was preserved in Runic charac- 
ters. *'The concurrent testimony of tradition," says 
Kemble, ''and the evidence of actual fact, assure us 
that throughout Europe short inscriptions were in use, 
commemorative of great public events or of distin- 

' Wanderer^ 37-50. 

^ Chateaubriand, Le Montagnard Emigre. Compare Campbell's 
Exile of Erin, and Beranger's Le Retour dans la Patrie. 
9 



188 WINCHESTER. 

guished individuals."' But the oldest MS. of the 
Chronicle, as we now possess it, dates only from 891. 
It was first filled up by a Northumbrian hand.'' Alfred 
gave it a new impetus. Under Archbishop Phlegmund 
it expanded into an historical narrative. Then, under 
the Archbishops of Canterbury, it varied in interest. At 
the time of the Korman Conquest, it was transferred to 
the monastery of Peterborough, where it was continued 
till the death of Stephen. In the mean time it was fre- 
quently retouched. Such is the history of the Chron- 
icle. It is racy of the soil. It is the most characteris- 
tic literary product of English thought. It gave that 
taste for historical research in which Enj^land shines 
preeminent among the nations of Europe. No other 
country can boast of such a vast collection of authentic 
historical material.^ 

The Chronicle, as in a mirror, reflects the various 
moods of the people each year. Calamities are accom- 
panied by signs and wonders: " a. d. 793. In this year 
dire forewarnings came over the land of the Northum- 
brians, and miserably terrified the people : there were 
excessive whirlwinds and lightnings, and fiery dragons 
were seen in the air. A great famine soon followed 
these tokens ; and a little after that, in the same year, 
on the VI. of the Ides of January, the havoc of hea- 
then men miserably destroyed God's church at Lindes- 
farne, through rapine and slaughter." Each natural 
phenomenon has its record. The passage of a comet is 
recorded in the same line with the passing of a saint and 
the death and succession of a king : " a. d. T29. In this 

^ ArcJiceologia^ vol. xxviii,, p. 330. 

2 Manual of Englhh Literature, by Air. T. Arnold, p. 16, 
^ See, foi' instance, that rich mine now being issued by the Master 
of the Rolls. 



THE SENTIMENT OF NATIONALITY. 189 

year the star comet appeared ; and St. Ecgberht died in 
lona. And in the same year Osric died ; he was king 
eleven winters ; then Ceolwnlf succeeded to the king- 
dom and held it eight years. . . . a. d. 733. In this year 
Athelbald captured Somerton ; and the sun was eclij)sed, 
and all the sun's disk Avas like a black shield ; and Acca 
was driven from his bishopric." Sometimes it is eulogis- 
tic ; sometimes it finds a word of censure for those to 
whom censure is due ; sometimes it moralizes in presence 
of death, as when recounting the demise of William the 
Conqueror. Monk Wulfsta:n' (1007-1095), who, it is 
thought, was then editor of this national document, lets 
his personality crop out : "If any wisheth to know 
what manner of man he was, or in what worship he was 
held, or of how many lands he was lord, then will we 
write of him as we have known him ; for we looked on 
him and in his household dwelt awhile." And in the 
same place he makes these wholesome reflections which 
reecho the poem of The Grave : " Alas ! how false and 
how unstable is this world's wealth ! He who was be- 
fore a powerful king and lord of many a land, had then 
of all his land only a portion of seven feet ; and he who 
was whilom decked with gold and with gems lay there 
covered over with mold ! " ^ Centuries after, that 
strain will be taken up by another Englishman, and in 
the same spirit Sir Walter Raleigh will repeat what 
is here written, and which he may have read. Speak- 
ing to Death, he says : " Thou hast drawn together all 
the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and 
ambition of man, and covered it all over with these 
two nari'ow words, lllcjacet /"^ 

Thus toil these monks. They create this people's 

^ Under a. d. 1807. Ten Brink (JS. Eng. Lit., p. 144) thinks these 
entries might have been made by Colman, the chaplain of Wulfstan. 
2 History of the World. 



190 WINCHESTER. 

civilization, they cultivate and preserve its language ; 
they teach it refinement ; their culture extends to the 
very soil as well as to intellect and heart. They record 
the glories and trials — the strength and the weakness — 
the shame and the honor of their race. But they have 
no good word for themselves ; they keep in the back- 
ground ; their names are frequent matter of conjecture ; 
they sought only to have them inscribed in the book of 
life. 

3. Most forcibly is the sentiment akin to the national 
feeling told in the poetic efforts that run through the 
latter part of the Chronicle. These vary in merit. 
That on the death of Edgar is a commonplace eulogy. 
The very form of expressing his death is that which Old 
English poetry naturally assumed. In the stereotyped 
manner it tells that he left the joys of earth and chose 
him other light : " a. d. 975. Here ended the joys of 
earth for Edgar, King of Englishmen ; he chose him 
other light beauteous and winsome, and left this frail, 
this perishable life." ^ Of superior merit is the Battle of 
Brunanburh. Passages in it recall the spirit of Beowulf 
or the war-strophes of Cedmon. The poem must have 
been the war-lyric of that day. It begins : 

" This year King Athelstan, the lord of earls, 
Ring-giver to the warriors, Ednaund too, 
His brother, won in fight with edge of swords 
Life-long renown at Brnnanbiirh. The sons 
Of Edward clave with the forged steel the wall 
Of linden shields. The spirit of their sires 
Made them defenders of the land, its wealth. 
Its homes, in many a fight with many a foe. 
Low lay the Scottish foes, and death-doomed fell 
The shipmen ; the field streamed with warrior's blood, 

' See Ante p. 4-5. 



THE SENTIMEXT OF NATIOXALITY. IQJ 

When rose at morniugtide the glorious star, 
The sun, God's sinning candle, until sank 
The noble creature to its setting. There 
Lay many a Northern warrior, struck by darts 
Shot from above the shield, and scattered wide 
As fled the Scots, weary and sick of war. 

. The hard hand-play 
The Mercians refused to none who came, 
"Warriors with Anlaf, o'er the beating waves, 
■ And borne in the ship's bosom, came death-doomed 
To battle in that land. There lay five kings 
Whom on the battle-field swords put to sleep. 

And they were young 

Slaughter more than this 
Was in this island never yet. Sword's edge 
Never laid more men low, from what books tell. 
Old chronicles, since hither from the east 
Angles and Saxons, over the broad sea, 
Looking for land, sought Britain — proud war-smiths 
Who won the country from the conquered AVelsb.^ 

In modernizing the language, we lose the force and 
energy of the original. The alliteration, the constant 
repetition of the same expression in short lines for sake 
of emphasis — all remind one of the hammering of swords 
that must have gone to make this war-play. It is a 
chaunt that in its day must have been soul-stirring. 
Cunningly did the poet weave into his lyric not only 
the event of Athelstan's victory, but the fact of the 
conquest of the chief part of the island of Britain. In 
the same martial spirit is written the Fight at Maldoii. 
Byrhtnoth, an eldorman of Essex in 991, resists the 
Danes, and loses his life in the contest. Hard and well 
he fought. Noble and true stood his companions by 

* Translation by Henry Morley in Early English Writers, vol. i., 
p. 420. 



192 WINCHESTER. 

him. Fast and heavy fell the war-beam on the shield. 
This lyric was first printed by Hearne in prose form at 
the end of his edition of the chronicle of John of Glas- 
tonbury. The MS. was burned in the fire that was so 
disastrous to the Cotton Library in 1731. It comes 
nearest to the Homeric standard of war-songs. Dia- 
logue and action blend ; the men encourage each other ; 
challenge is answered by defiance. The whole is rela- 
ted with a precision of style that is rare in Old English 
literature. Here is a characteristically English passage : 
" The hour was come when the fated warriors should 
fall. Shouts arose ; the ravens congregated, and the 
eagle greedy of its food ; a cry was on the earth. They 
darted from their hands many a stout spear ; the sharp- 
ened arrows flew ; the bows were busy ; the buckler 
received the weapon's point ; bitter was the fight ; war- 
riors fell on either side ; the youths lay slain." And 
then the poet enters into details of the behavior of each. 
Even the cowards are not forgotten. Words seem to 
accumulate even as the blows. But English valor could 
not withstand the foe. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

ABINGDON. 

In spite of treaty and compromise, of the payment 
of Danegelt and the establishment of Danalaga, in spite 
of an occasional victory brilliant enough to be recorded 
in song, the Danes succeeded in making themselves the 
rulers of England. Though they imposed upon the 
people many of their practices and customs and per- 
sonal habits, and revived old superstitions, they ended 
by becoming better Christians than their Christian 
teachers. But with war and devastation also came 
ignorance. The English lost all love for book-lore. 
The good work of Alfred was nipped in the bud. His 
educational reforms were only poorly carried out after 
his death. Dunstan revived them wdth some tempo- 
rary success. Under his fostering care Glastonbury 
became "the great public school of England for the 
education of the higher classes of society." - Among 
his most zealous and accomplished disciples was Ethel- 
wold. He combined in himself all the learning of the 
day. He had studied abroad, and had made the ac- 
quaintance of the most eminent men. He writes a 
treatise on the quadrature of the circle, which he ad- 

^ lAves of the Archbishops of Canterbury, vol. i., p. 424. 



194 AB^GDON. 

dresses to Gerbert/ He is an eminent educator. He 
is an active restorer of monastic life and monastic dis- 
cipline. At the request of King Edgar he translates 
St. Benedict's Rule of a Monastic Life ^ into English, 
and in return the King gives him the manor of South- 
bourne.^ He restored the decayed Abbey of Abingdon, 
and revived in it the religious life. Soon this abbey 
became renowned as a center of learnino;. Amons; the 
first to become a pupil of Ethehvold's was Alfric. 

I. — The Two Alfeics. 

1. From a literary point of view Alfkic is the chief 
figure of this period. Not that he was in any sense a 
great genius, or even remarkably learned. But he took 
an active part in the educational and religious reforms 
of the day. He was imbued with the spirit of Dunstan. 
It grieved him to see so many priests unable to read the 
Sacred Scriptures in the Latin. " Once I knew," he 
tells us, " that a certain mass-priest who was my master 
at that time, had the book of Genesis, and he could 
scarcely understand Latin." * So he translates the Hep- 
tateuch, the Book of Job, and other portions of the 
Holy Scriptures into his mother-tongue. He gave his 
countrymen what might be called the first Latin-Eng- 
lish dictionary. Accompanying Ethelwold to Winches- 
ter, when the latter was made bishop of that see, he 
helped considerably by his practical teachings to spread 
the fame of the school there established. In all his 
writings he is very particular about his language. He 

^ This treatise is to be seen in MS. in the Bodleian Library. MS. 
Digby, No. 83. 

2 MS. Cotton, Faustina, A. X. 

3 TJwmce Eliens. Hist., apud Wharton, Anglia Sacra, vol. i., p. 604. 
* Preface to Alfric's Translation of Ganesis. 



THE TWO ALFRICS. 195 

admonishes the scribes to copy his works carefully. 
" He does great evil," says he, " who writes false, unless 
he correct it ; it is as though he turns true doctrine to 
false error ; therefore should every one make that straight 
which he before bent crooked, if he would be guiltless 
at God's doom." ^ Might he have in these words any 
allusion to the controversy raised after six hundred years 
over his doctrinal teachings ? Be this as it may, certain 
it is that his warning was not heeded ; for his words 
have been misquoted and misunderstood. 

About 990 Alfric prepared his Homilies.'^ They 
are not original. They are simply translations from 
the sermons of various authors in the Latin, with here 
and there a digression. They are intended to be read 
to the people on Sundays and festivals. Alfric trans- 
lated them with the intention of giving men correct 
notions of their religion, and to prepare them for the 
last day. It was then a general impression that the 
year 1000 would be the end of the world. All this 
Alfric tells us in his own quaint manner : " It occurred 
to my mind, I trust through God's grace, that I would 
turn the book from the Latin language into the English 
tongue ; not from confidence of great learning, but be- 
cause I have seen and heard of much error in many 
English books, which unlearned men, through their 
simplicity, have esteemed as great wisdom ; and I re- 
gretted that they knew not nor had not the evangelical 
doctrines among their writings, those men only ex- 
cepted who knew Latin, and these books excepted which 
King Alfred wisely turned from Latin into English, 
which are to be had. For this cause I presumed, 

* Introduction to Homilies. 

^ Text : Alfric Society Publications. Alfric's Homilies^ vol. i., 1844 ; 
vol. ii., 1847. Edited by B. Thorpe. 



196 ABINGDON. 

trusting in God, to undertake this task, and also be- 
cause men have need of good instruction, especially 
at this time, which is the ending of this loorld ; and 
there will be many calamities among mankind before 
the end cometh, according to what our Lord said 
in the gosi^el." ^ The ending of the world did not ar- 
rive ; but Alfric lived in the latter days of Old English 
letters. The Homilies are rather doctrinal than emo- 
tional. There is a lack of directness in them. 'They do 
not always come home to the wants of the hour. Such 
a stirring up as is contained in the celebrated sermon of 
Bishop Wulfstan is what the people needed.'^ And 
sometimes Alfric undertakes to make plain to his Eng- 
lish readers and listeners the controversial points dis- 
cussed on the Continent. These theological distinc- 
tions he himself was initiated into, by the monks from 
Corbie who were sent to England at the request of 
Ethelwold. He especially imbibed the doctrines of 
Ratramnus on the holy Eucharist. ISTow it happened 
that from the days of Scotus Eregina, the dogma of 
the Eucharist had been under frequent discussion. 
And while Catholic theologians held firmly to the 
belief in the Real Presence, they differed materially 
concerning the manner of Its existence. It was these 
discussions that led up to the heresy of Berengarius 
a few years later. A large portion of the sermon of 
Alfric is a translation of the treatise of Ratramnus. 
So long as both Ratramnus and Alfric assert the doc- 
trines of the Church, their language is clear ; it be- 
comes obscure only when they undertake to reason upon 

^ Preface to the Homilies. 

2 Given in Turner's History of iJie Anglo-Saxons^ b. vi., ch. xiv. ; 
also in Wright's Biographia Literaria, vol, i. Mr. Wright, with Wan- 
ley, identifies Lupus with Bishop Wulfstan. 



THE TWO ALFRFJS. 19 7 

the mystery. Both say : " This sacrament is a pledge 
and a figure : Christ's body is truth." ^ Nor in this 
were they saying aught contrary to Catholic teaching. 
But the ring of this passage is unmistakable ; it speaks 
the faith not only of Alfric, but of the whole Church 
then as now : " The bread and the wine which are hal- 
lowed through the mass of the priests, appear one thing 
to human understandings without, and cry another thing 
to believing minds within. Without they appear bread 
and wine, both in aspect and in taste, but they are, 
truly, after the hallowing, Christ's body and His blood 
through a ghostly mystery."^ The disputes about Al- 
fric clearly prove the consequences to which a disregard 
of time and place may lead. History must consult the 
one and the other. Events can not be isolated. ^ 

2. Sermons and homilies were the order of the day. 
Many there wer^ who delighted in writing these 
sermons in their mother-tongue. The period was an 
active one for the cultivation of Old En owlish. Men 
sought to compose well and speak well. The literary 
revival tells upon the clergy. Among the most remark- 
able body of sermons that have come down to us are 
the £lickling Homilies.^ They were composed about 
971. They embody much of the traditional and legend- 
ary knowledge concerning the saints and the Blessed 
Virgin Mary. We are treated to a sermon on the ap- 
proaching end of the world, in which men are exhorted 

' Ratramnius's words are : Hoc corpus pignus est et species : illud 
Veritas. 

^ Homilies, vol, ii., p. 269. 

^ For a full account of the doctrine of the Eucharist as treated by 
Alfric, see Lingard's Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Churchy note N. 

4 Text : E. E. T. S. Pub., part i., 1874 ; part ii., 1876. The BlicUing 
Homilies are so named because they are preserved in the Marquis of Lo- 
thian's library, at Blickling Hall, in Norfolk. See AthencBum, No. 2820, 



198 ABINGDON. 

to prepare for it with all due diligence.* St. Andrew 
is dealt with precisely as in the poem of Andreas. The 
account is more literal. The poetical episodes and the 
old epic allusions are omitted. The author, however, 
must have had a poet's soul. A beautiful simplicity 
runs through his sermons. He pictures things with life- 
like reality. A characteristic instance is the sermon on 
the Assumption of Mary.^ We are transported to the 
scene of her death-bed. Our Lord is there. And the 
apostles are there. And they speak of her great virtues 
and high prerogatives. All the details of preparing a 
corpse for burial are entered into. Then some wicked 
Jews w^ould intercept the body as it was borne to the 
grave. But they are struck blind and they fall to the 
ground, and miracles are wrought at her coffin. In the 
mean time her soul ascends to heaven : " And then the 
Lord received her soul and gave it to St. Michael the 
archangel, and he received her soul with the prostration 
of all his limbs. And she had nought upon her save 
only a human form, and she had a soul seven times 
brighter than snow." The author makes no attempt 
to convince his hearers. He speaks to them of that 
which he and they believe without a shadow of doubt. 
Altogether, the J^UcMing Homilies are made out of 
more homespun material than are those of Alfric. They 
lack the Scriptural accuracy and the learning of Alf ric's ; 
but they more closely represent the average sermon of 
the day. The same is true of Wulfstan's sermons. 
They are upon the topics of the hour. The good bishop 
brings home to his people the calamities that were be- 
falling them. As Gildas regarded the English conquest 
as a punishment of the sins of his countrymen, so does 
Wulf Stan regard the Danish invasion. Men had become 
» X., p. 106. 2 147^ 



THE TWO ALFKICS. 199 

unnatural. The strong tie of kinship was weakened '. 
" Now, very often, the kinsman protected his kindred 
no more than strangers, nor the father his child, nor 
sometimes the child his own father, nor one brother the 
other." Crime and vice he denounced as sitting in places 
high and holy. 

3. Alfric had a disciple of the same name with the 
surname of Bata — Alfkic Bat a. He was exclusively 
an educator. He continued the methods he had learned 
from his more celebrated master. We have seen how 
fond the English were of putting their subjects in the 
shape of question and answer. In this manner did both 
Alfrics teach the Latin language. They first arranged, 
in Old English with interlinear translation, a series of 
conversations on the leading trades and occupations of 
the day. This was enlarged and improved by the second 
Alfric. The Colloquies ^ have passed down to us one 
of the best and liveliest pictures of their day. We are 
introduced to the plowman and the shepherd and the 
ox-herd ; we converse with the fisher, and the hunter, 
and the fowder, about their crafts ; the merchant tells 
us what goods he has and how he sells them ; the black- 
smith, the shoemaker, and the baker have a good word 
each for his respective trade. And the cook tells us 
that if we were to send him away, and do our own cook- 
ing, then would we all be slaves and none of us lord, 
and moreover, he adds, " without my craft ye eat not." 
Finally, we have a full picture of the student's life. He 
tells us the hour of rising and the time spent in prayer 
and study ; he tells us what he eats and what he drinks ; 
he tells us where he sleeps, and how sometimes he arises 
when he hears the matin knell, " and sometimes my 
teacher awakens me roughly — stithlice — with a rod." 
^ Text: Thorpe's Analecta Anglo-Saxonica. 



200 ABINGDON. 

Being asked what lie drinks at meals, he answers : 
" Ale, if I have it, or water if I have no ale." Wine he 
considers a rather costly drink : "I am not so rich that 
I might buy me wine ; and wine is not a drink for chil- 
dren or foolish persons, but for elders and the wise." In 
those days, too, was there a code of honor among stu- 
dents. The scholar is asked and replies as follows : 
" Were you beaten to-day ? I was not, for I was very 
careful. And how about your companions ? Why ask 
me of them ? I dare not disclose our secrets — Ic ne 
dear yppan tM deglu Hre. Each one knows if he were 
beaten or no — ^9ird geliwilG icdt gif he heswungen icaes 
oththe nd." Thus it is that this little book serves a pur- 
pose far different from that intended by Alfric Bata. 
It raises the curtain of time and transports us back to 
the inner life and thought of a past civilization. 

II. — Tenth Century Poetky. 

1. To speak generally, this period may be set down as 
a period of moralizing, of translating, and of paraphras- 
ing. Men seek to bring the science, the learning, the 
religious teachings of the day within the grasp of the 
many. Euclid is studied in English ; Beda's scientific 
treatises are read in English ; church-hymns are sung in 
English. Bridforth (fl. 980) won renown as the most 
eminent English mathematician of the latter part of the 
tenth century.^ The name and the writings of Alfred 
continued to be revered ; and one admirer of his turned 
his prose translation of the verses of Boethius into cor- 
responding verse, and called it Alfred'' s Meters. And 
men forgot Alfred's wisdom and his practical cast of 
mind so far as to think that in the midst of his mani- 

1 Wright, Biog. Brit. Lit., vol. i. 



TENTH CENTURY POETRY. 201 

fold occupations he could have amused himself in writ- 
ing such weak poems. So they said Alfred wrote them.* 
Again, for educational purposes, interlinear translations 
became popular. It is thus we have Latin church-hymns 
with an Old English glossary between lines ; ^ and the 
Gospels were so interlineated. It is from this early 
practice that has passed into our English speech the 
custom of calling any effort to go back of what is writ- 
ten and get at the unexpressed meaning or intention of 
the writer, "reading between lines." The poetry of 
this period must have been abundant, though of an in- 
ferior order. In 979, the Council held under Dunstan 
decrees that men abstain from fabulous readings ; that 
on holidays they forbear from heathenish songs and 
diabolical sports ; and that no priest be a common 
rhymer.^ This shows that such things were carried to 
excess. But what these heathenish songs or fabulous 
readings were is beyond our knowing at present. The 
only poetry of this time that has come down to us is of 
a devotional or moral character ; and that same lacks 
the inspiration of genius.* The Old English were de- 
voted to the Blessed Virgin Mary. As early as 680 the 
Council of Hatfield proclaimed Mary to be properly and 
truly the Mother of God, retaining inclissolubly her vir- 

^ " They vrere probably composed by some obscure writer of the 
tenth century, who imagined that Alfred's version of Boethius was im- 
perfect so long as the meters were only given in prose." Wright, Biog. 
Brit. Lit., p. 400. See, however, Anglia, vii., i., p. 173. 

2 Latin Hymns of tlie Anglo-Saxon Church, with Interlinear Anglo- 
Saxon Glossary. From a MS. of the eleventh century, in the libra- 
ry of the Dean and Chapter of Durham, published by the Surtees 
Society. 

3 Wilkins's Concilia, i., p. 225. 

* It is contained in the MS. presented by Bishop Leofric to the Ex- 
eter Cathedral ; hence called the Exeter Book, or Codex Exoniensis. 



202 ABINGDON. 

ginity even after the birth of the Saviour/ The Old 
English poet, in contemplating the Incarnation^ thus 
rhapsodizes on the Mother of God : " O thou Mary, of 
this mid world, the purest woman upon earth of those 
who have been throughout all ages ; all men endowed 
with speech, blithe of mood, say how with right thou 
art Bride of the most excellent Lord of heaven. So also 
the highest in the heavens, also Christ's disciples, say 
and sing that thou, with holy virtues, art Lady of the 
glory -host, and of mundane natures under the heavens 
and of hell's inmates. For that thou, alone of all 
mankind, nobly didst resolve, boldly devising, that thou 
thy maidenhood to the Lord wouldst bring and give 
without sins. . . . Now we before thy Child gaze in our 
mind ; intercede for us now with bold words, that He 
let us not any longer obey error in this vale of death, 
but that He convey us into the Father's kingdom, where 
sorrowless we may after dwell in glory with the God of 
hosts." ^ Even in its hymns of piety this childish intel- 
lect must attempt to solve riddles. Here is one in a 
poem on the Natwity. We are told that at the ascen- 
sion the angels appeared in white robes. Now, our poet 
wishes to know why, *' when the Almighty was born 
through a state of purity, after that He Mary, choice of 
maidens, illustrious damsel, for mother chose — that 
there, clad in white robes angels appeared not ? . . . 
Yet in books it saith not that they in white robes ap- 
peared." ^ In the poem on the Ascension, we find an 
idea couched in the old epic phraseology : " The ad- 
versaries might not in battle prosper — in the hurling of 

^ Wilkins's Concilia, i., p. 53 ; Rev. T. E. Bridgctt, Our Lady's 
Doiory^ p. 39. 

^ Codex Ezonicnsis, p. 1*7. 
3 Ihid., p. 29. 



TEXTH CEXTURY POETRY. 203 

weapons — when the King of Glory, heaven's kingdom's 
chief — waged war against his ancient foes with his sole 
might, when from captivity he drew forth of spoils the 
greatest, from the foe's city numberless people." ^ The 
picture is that of an English chief taking with him the 
cattle and slaves that he has wrested from his con- 
quered foe, imaged, be it said, with devotion and rever- 
ence. 

2. The Hymn of Praise marks a new turn taken by 
the Old English mind. It shows that war and piracy 
have ceased to be men's all-absorbing thought. Wis- 
dom and book-lore and science and eloquence take pre- 
cedence of the sterner labors. " Then honored us He 
who this world created — God's Spirit-Son — and gave us 
grace above with angels — seats eternal — and also mani- 
fold wisdom of thought sowed and set in the minds — 
sefan — of men. To one eloquence he wisely sendeth 
into his intellect through his mouth's guest, noble un- 
derstanding. . . . One can the harp awake ; . . . one 
can Divine law rightly expound ; . . . one can tell of 
the star's course ; . . . one can cunningly verbal utter- 
ance write. To one success in battle He giveth, when 
the shaft-shower, over the shield's defense, warriors 
send ; . . . one can boldly over the salt sea the vessel 
drive ; . . . one can the tree — lofty steep — ascend ; . . . 
one can work a steeled sword ; . . . one knoweth the 
course of the fields." "^ This is the religious view of man's 
duties. Now it so happens that we are enabled to pre- 
sent our readers with the secular side of the callings of 
life. It includes the lawful and, like gambling, the un- 
lawful. The poem is on the Various Fortunes of Men. 
" The Lord allots various callings to all : to one success 

^ Codex Exoniensis^ p. 35, 
2 Ihid., p. 41. 



204 ABINGDON. 

in war, stern battle-play ; to one in casting or shooting 
briglit glory ; to one skill at tables, cunning at the col- 
ored board. Some doctors wise become — hoceras ; for 
one a wondrous skill in goldsmith's art is provided ; full 
oft he decorates and well adorns a poAverfnl king's 
noble, and he to him gives broad land in recompense, 
and he joyfully receives it. One shall give pleasure to 
man in company at beer-delight — the bench-sittersr- 
where there is great joy of drinkers ; . . . one is very 
strenuous, has a cunning play of merry deeds, a gift 
before men, light and pliable of limb. . . . One shall 
sit with the harp at his lord's feet, money receive, and 
ever quickly with rapid flexions send forth a loud sound. 
. . . One shall tame the wild bird proud — the hawk on 
his hand — till that the martial swallow becomes gen- 
tle." ^ Such were the avocations both religious and 
secular poet thought worth singing. The poems throw 
additional light on the tastes and occupations of those 
distant days. 

3. But England had other forms of thought, though 
they were not indigenous to her people. They were 
popular throughout Christendom, and seem to have had 
a Greek, perhaps an Asiatic, origin. They are known 
as Bestiaries. But where the Latin text is concise, the 
English paraphrase is diffuse and labored. It was a 
favorite manner of teaching moral truth with the early 
Churchmen.^ They were pleased to draw parables from 
the habits of the animal creation. Nor was it to them 
a matter of moment that some of the animals were 

^ Codex Exoniensis, p. 331-2. 

2 See Wright's edition of a Bestiary in Norman French, translated 
by Philippe de Thaun, " for the honor of a jewel, who is a very hand- 
some woman ; Aliz is she named, a queen is she crowned — Queen of 
England." — {Popular 2'reatises on Science, p. 75.) 



TEXTH CENTURY POETRY. 205 

fabled and the habits of others feigned. The moral 
truth remained equally convincing. Thus we have the 
poem of the Phoenix.^ The terrestrial paradise in which 
it lives is described. We are told the manner in which 
it rises out of its own ashes quite rejuvenated. And 
then the moral is di'awn. We have the poem of the 
Panther!^ His skin is variegated with all colors. He 
likes all living things save the serpent. So is the Lord 
kind to everything in life except Satan, the old serpent. 
Then we have the poem on the Wliale.^ The whale 
was a very popular subject for allegory in the Middle 
Ages. The whale's mouth was the stereotyped repre- 
sentative of the jaws of hell in description and in picture 
and in the scenic accompaniments of the miracle-plays. 
This poem speaks of him as being so large that he is 
taken for an island, and ships anchor by him. Here is 
a reproduction of the incident told of Sinbad the Sailor 
in the Arabian Niglits' Entertainment. We are further 
infoinned that this monster beguiles little fishes into his 
mouth and devours them. Then follows the moral, spun 
out to impressive lengths, that even so does the devil 
beguile souls, and devour them. 

4. Foreign influence is blending more and more in 
English letters to the immediate disadvantage of English 
thought. The new grooves of thinking are not con- 
genial to the English mind. Foreign influence is ruling 
the monasteries ; foreign influence is beginning to make 
itself felt in the Church ; foreign influence is gathering 
round the court. Edward brino-s from Rouen l!^orman 
tastes and Norman ideas. The very dry legal deeds 

^ Codex Exoniensis. 

^ Popular Treatises on Science^ p. 356. 

3 Ibid., p. 364. 



206 ABINGDON. 

indicate a change in thought and manner of wording. 
Their expression is entirely alien to the Old English 
homely way of putting things. We have before us a 
deed of the grant of land made by King Edward to 
Eadulf, his thegn. It is such as might have been 
worded in the latter days of the Roman Empire. The 
writer of it must have been imbued with classic studies. 
He speaks of Olympus and the nod of the Archruler. 
The deed begins in the usual form : " Our Lord Jesus 
Christ reigneth." Then it proceeds in this strain : 
" While all creatures were in the beginning fashioned 
and created beautiful by the providence of the Arch- 
ruler, who maketh in many modes and divers forms 
Olympus, with the stars, to be revolved at his nod.' " 
Here follow the details of the grant. We have come 
upon a time of revolution within the kingdom and with- 
out it. The Godwins surround Edward and set the 
whole island in a flame. Edward dies ; Harold is de- 
feated at Senlac ; the Norman rules England, and the 
curfew tolls the death-knell of Old English letters and 
ultimately of the Old English language. 

COKCLUSION. 

We have endeavored to trace the growth and de- 
velopment of English literature from the first dawnings 
of history to the Norman Conquest. In the fragments 
which have been snatched from the ravages of time we 
have studied the spirit that dictated them and the mode 
of life that made them congenial. We have glanced at 

^ " Ac multis modis ac diversis speeiebus olymphum cum sideribus 
rotari suo nutu perficieiis." Deed of Eadweard in 1049, Fac-Similes 
of Anglo-Saxon MSS., MSS. at Canterbury photozincographed by Lieu- 
tenant-General Jo Cameron, Director of tiie General Ordnance Survey. 



COXCLUSION. 207 

tlie manners and customs, the laws and the songs of the 
English people while it still dwelt in its Continental 
homestead. Many of these we found common to all 
the Teutonic races, others were peculiar to the English.^ 
We found this people to have epic poems and war-songs 
and an historical record so far back that it were useless 
to name a definite period. We saw this peoj^le trans- 
plant its whole organic constitution to the insular home- 
stead. We saw it confront and partially subjugate 
another and a kindred race with other manners, other 
customs, and a different cast of mind and temperament, 
and we studied the dispositions of each in the light of 
the other. We traced Keltic influence on English and 
Continental literature long before English exclusiveness 
is broken through and Keltic blood tells upon Teutonic 
character. The English were Christianized. We point- 
ed out the traits of similarity and of difference which 
existed in the old creed and the new. We watched the 
civilizing progress of the Christian influence. This peo- 
ple, profoundly religious even in its paganism, becomes 
enthusiastically so in the true religion. It creates a 
Christian epic in the Song of Cedmon. It sends abroad 
missionaries who convert the kin it left in the Continen- 
tal home. There too the religious spirit bursts forth in 
poetry, the fragments of which are too few. Of the 
poem corresponding to Cedmon's Paraphrase we have 
only the beginning, now known as the Weisseiihrunn 
Hymn. And the first part of that is but slightly differ- 

^ See Statistique Judiciaire des Francs^ des Anglo-Saxons et autres 
Pev.rjics du Moyen-Agc^ par M. Moreau de Jonnes, in the Seances et 
Travaux de VAcademie des Sciences Morales et Politiques^ Comptes Ren- 
clxs, 1852-3. See also the discussion that followed the reading of this 
insti'uctive paper, exhaustive on every topic but the influence of Chris- 
tianity upon Salic and Saxon laws. 



208 CONCLUSION. 

ent from the cosmogony of the northern mythology. 
It expresses the idea that God created from nothing- 
ness with clearness. " Questioning sages, wisest of men, 
I learned that earth was not, nor heaven above, nor tree, 
nor was there mountain, nor any star, nor did sun shine, 
nor moon give light, nor was there the vast sea. Then 
was there nought from end to end of the universe. But 
there existed the one Almighty God, most merciful to 
man, and with Him were also many Godlike spirits." * 
This is eminently Christian. 

When by means of these paraphrasings and Christian 
cosmogonies men got a taste for the Sacred Scriptures, 
these books were translated into all the Teutonic dia- 
lects — into English and Frankish, and Old Saxon and 
Gothic — and thus the Bible became the basis of Teu- 
tonic literature. This is a fact worthy to be remem- 
bered. It is a clew to other literary phenomena. 

We have found that after England had become 
Christian her literature became preeminently religious. 
Theodore added to the store of common knowledge the 
traditions of the East. Aldhelm sang some of these 
traditions and praised virginity. Benedict Biscop im- 
proved the tastes of his countrymen. He brought books 
and pictures and music and singers and artists and arti- 

^ " Dah chifrcgin ih mit firahim, firiwizzo mcista, 
Dat ero ni was, noh uf himil, 
Noh paum noh pereg ni was, 
Ni [sterro] nohheinig, noh sunna ni scein, 
Noh mano ni liuhta, noh der mareo seo ; 
Do dar niwiht. ni was, enteo ni wenteo, 
Enti do was der eino Almahtico Cot 
Manno miltisto, enti (dar warun auh) manaho mit inan 
Cootlice Geista." 
The Hymn as copied by Grimm in 1812, in Weissenbrunn, Fran- 
conia, whence its name. 



CONCLUSIOX. 209 

ficers from the Continent to instruct them in the mechan- 
ic and liberal arts and to build for them better houses. 
And Aldfred, the learned King of Xorthumbria, gener- 
ously seconded his efforts. We see him at one time 
giving him nine hundred acres of land for a geographi- 
cal book. We have seen Wearmouth and Jarrow shed 
luster, not only on England, but on the whole of West- 
ern Europe. Beda is the brightest light of his age. 
Alcwin reflects that light in France, and transplants the 
methods of Beda and Archbishop Ecgberht on the banks 
of the Rhine. England becomes the educator of West- 
ern Europe. Then came the Dane. He destroys in a 
short time the accumulated labors of centuries. In seven 
short years he has sacked and burned every monastery 
and convent in Xorthumbria. What was a garden of 
peace and saint liness becomes a desert waste. Alfred 
checks his course, and makes Winchester another focus 
of learning. Again the light wanes ; then it revives 
under the fostering care of Dunstan and Ethelwold and 
Alfric ; Glastonbury, and Abingdon, and Winchester 
become each a celebrated seat and nursery of scholars 
and zealous monks and clergy. But the Norman de- 
spises the Old English language ; it ceases to be written, 
and soon runs waste into as many dialects as there are 
shires, till Old English literature is extinguished in the 
last entry of the Chronicle. 

Such, in a few words, is the record of the rise and 
fall of Old English literature. We have found beneath 
it change, and growth, and development. With Chris- 
tianity came a new civilization and a new order of ideas. 
Tastes were cultivated, manners refined, views broad- 
ened, and natures spiritualized. But the work is still 
imperfect. Many elements are lacking. In all that re- 
mains of Old English literature, we have met with no 



210 CONCLUSION. 

trace of mirth, or wit, or humor, or the sentiments of 
love and j^atriotism — sentiments the essence of which is 
total forgetfulness of self and absorption in the object 
of one's affections. In the stead, we have found a grave 
seriousness, a robust energy, love of Avar, a religious 
nature, and an unconquerable selfishness ; we have found 
a slow-moving intelligence and a corresponding utter- 
ance. English life, political, social, and intellectual, is 
still in its infancy. 

But other influencing agencies are about to act upon 
English life, and mold the English mind. The Nor- 
man will come and conquer, and will bring with him 
new models in architecture, in art, and in letters ; he 
will introduce feudalism, with its thorough social and 
military organization, and will teach new modes and 
habits of living ; he will initiate this rugged and robust 
intelligence into the secret of artistic construction in 
composition, and will refine and elevate its tastes. The 
struggle for predominancy between the old order and 
the new will take centuries ; but the outcome will be an 
improved civilization, a language rich and flexible, and 
adequate to the most varied thought and sentiment. 
The work of education will still go on. Monks will set- 
tle in Cambridge and in Oxford, bringing with them the 
new philosophy and the new learning of Paris, and Eng- 
lish youths will acquire habits of severe mental disci- 
pline and precision of language from scholastic train- 
ing. Italy, through the writings of Dante and Petrarch 
and Boccaccio, will teach them complete artistic forms 
of expression. Spain will indoctrinate them with an 
elevated mysticism that will spiritualize their ideas. 
From France again, during the Restoration, they will 
bring home with great licentiousness in morals, plays 
abounding in wit and humor, from which they will 



CONCLUSION. 211 

learn to write comedy in a sprightly fashion. In this 
manner will Europe assist in the growth and develop- 
ment of the English mind. And then the English mind 
in turn will react upon European thought, and Locke 
and Berkeley and Hume will start that train of specu- 
lation of which Kant with modern transcendentalism is 
the outcome. So runs educative influence through the 
ages ; so does people act upon people ; so does each 
epoch transmit to the succeeding epoch its legacy of 
thought and language ; so does an age adapt itself to 
environment of customs and industries and expression 
in word and art, and the sum of civilization into which 
it is born, and so is there a continuity of thought even 
as there is a continuity of life. 
10 



IJSTDEX. 



PAGE 
A 

Abingdon 193 

Adrian 132 

Aidann 91 

Alcwin 161 

his genius and influence as an 

educator 162, 163 

Aldfred, King of Northumbria. 153, 209 

Aldhelm (656-719) 133, 159 

his style 134 

his praise of virginity 134 

he writes Old English poems. . . 135 

probable author of Andreas 136 

Alfred's Meters^ not written by 

Alfred the Great 200 

Alfred the Great (849-901) 175 

he checks the Danes 175 

he encourages learning 176 

his love for Old English song... 176 
his desire to see all his subjects 

educated 177 

he translates Gregory's Pas- 
toral 177 

he translates Boethius's Conso- 
lations of Philosophy 178 

the benefactor of his people 179 

his lavFS 183 

Alfric 194 

his Homilies 195 

Alfric Bata 199 

his Colloquies 199 

Andreas 136, 198 

Aneurin (510-560) 66 

Arabian Nights'' Entertainment. 205 
Arnold, Matthew, Keltic influence 

on English poetry 59 

Arnold, T. , on Beowulf (note) 46 



PAGE 

Aryan and English, their kinship . . 6 

Ascension., hymn of the 202 

Asser 177 

Athelstan 184 

Athens 13 

Augustin 84 

books he brings to Engbnd 85 

Aurelius Conanus 63 

Avitus 18 

B 

Baldr, legend of 92 

Battle of Brunanhurh 190 

Beda (672-735) 13, 153 

his school 154 

his knowledge 155 

his writings 154, 156 

his death 157 

Benedict Biscop 152 

Beowulf: an Old English epic 39 

analysis of the poem 39-44 

it is composed of two cycles 42 

the dragon-cycle 42-44 

theories concerning the poem. . . 44 
its present shape accounted 

for 46 

its ideal 47 

Bestiaries 204 

Blickling Homilies 197, 198 

'Qo^t^An^ Consolations of Philoso- 
phy 178 

Boniface 159 

Brecca 9 

Bridforth 200 

Brutus, story of, preserved by the 

Kymry 61 

Byrhtnoth 15 



214 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

c 

Canon of literary criticism 3 

Canterbury 131 

Carausius employs Frankish mer- 
cenaries 53 

Cedd 91 

Cedmon : Palgrave's theory con- 
cerning (note) 9T 

story of his life unraveled 100 

the songs he will not sing 101 

his call to the religious life 108 

he devotes himself to religious 

poetry 104 

origin of the story that he was 

an illiterate workingman 105 

he sings of the Holy Kood 107 

he bewails the passing away of 

his friends 108 

secret of his success 110 

his death-bed 112 

he paraphrases the sacred Scrip- 
tures 114 

his Satan compared with MH- 

ton^s 119 

his description of the destruc- 
tion of Pharaoh and his host. 122 

his influence at home 123 

his influence abroad 125 

Chaldean mythology identical in its 

first principle with Teutonic. 50 

Charm for sprained limb 94 

Christian version of 95 

Chrestien of Troyes 73 

Cnut, his laws 1S5 

Coifi '. 87 

Colloquies of Alfric Bata 199 

Columkill 90, 186 

Continental homestead 5 

Councils of the Church in England. 181 

Creide, the beautiful 73 

Cynewulf. 140 

his poem of Elene 1*1 

his poem of St. Juliana 143 

his Last Judgment 144 

D 

Danes 175 

Deor, his character and pojm. . . . 8o-37 



PAGE 

Duel, the, prevalent among the 

Teutonic races 18, 19 

Dujon 129 

Duns Scotus 75 

Dunstan 193 

E 

Ebel on the affinity between Keltic 

and Teutonic languages 57 

Edain, Queen, the legend of 74 

Edda, the, on woman 27 

Edgar : his laws 184 

death of 190 

Edwards on the infusion of Keltic 

blood among the English 58 

Edward the Confessor 205, 206 

Egil 25 

England's relapse to paganism 88 

English : on their Continental 

homestead 5-56 

soil, climate, and character 8 

Eorls and ceorls 15 

Eostre 93 

Ethelbirht, laws of. 182 

Etheldrida, Queen 157 

Ethelred, his laws 184 

Ethelwold 193 

F 

Ferdiad and Cuchulaind 69 

Fight at Finnesbv/rgh 37, 38 

Fight at Maiden 191 

Food of the Old English 32 

Frankish mercenaries in Britain 

under Carausius 58 

O 

Gaedhil and Kymry 68 

Gildas CI 

his fierce invectives 62 

his Epistle characterized 63 

Gnomic Verses 169 

Gondebaud 18 

Grave, The ITO 

Gregory the Great (550-6^4) 79 

his administrative genius 81, 82 

his writings 82, 83 



INDEX. 



215 



PAGE 

Grimbald 177 

Grimm on Beovmlf. 46 

GuUveig 55 

Guihlac, St., a poem 149 

H 

Haenir 53 

Hagen 26 

Haigh on Beowulf. 45 

Ilalltiorn, the myth of 105 

Hamdir 11 

Herbert Spencer 54 

Hilda, St 97 

Ileliand, the 127 

Homilies : Alfric's 195, 196 

Blickling 197 

Hunferth 9 

Hymn of Praise 203 

I 

Idda 11 

Jncarnation, hymn of the 202 

Insular homestead 77 

Ireland iu the sixth century 89, 90 

J 

Jarrow and York 152 

John, Alfred's mass-priest 177 

John the Chanter 153 

Jotenheim 51 

Judith, a poem 147 

K 

Kelt and Teuton 57 

difference of character. 60 

Keltic descriptive power 69 

Keltic passion for color 69 , 

Keltic sentiment 72 

Kemble : on Teutonic settlements . 14 

on Beowulf. 46 

L 

Lament of Beor 35 

Language and poetry on the Con- 
tinental homestead 33-47 

Lappenberg on the possession of 

land 20 

Laws and customs 12 

Laws, spirit of. 150 



PAGE 

Leobgitha 159 

Literature : a criterion of civilization 1 

not all a people's thought 1 

the outcome of a people's life. . . 2 

Llywarch Hen (490-5S0) 67 

his lament over bis son Gwenn. 67 

his poetic tenderness 68 

Location of houses and villages 21 

Locke 54 

Lodur 53, 54 

Loki 55 

Lombard law 12 

Lover's Message 151 

M 

» 

Maildulph 133 

Maine, H. S., on aristocracies 13 

Malte Brun refuted 48 

Marculf, a remarkable formula in.. 27 

Mary, Blessed Virgin, devotion to, . 201 

Math, legend of. 75 

May -pole, heathen origin of 94 

Mead-Hall, the, described 30 

Menology 172 

Morley, Henry : on Beovmlf 46 

on Keltic influence among the 

English 59 

N 

Nationality, sentiment of, among 

the Old English 186 

Nativity^ h}-mn of the 202 

Nibelungen-lied.. .'. 26 

Nicor 93 

Northumbria a waste 175 

O 

Odin 53 

Old English : lands in common 20 

love for war 22 

Old English Chronicle 187 

its history 188 

its characteristics 188-189 

Olympus 206 

Ordeal by fire and water 19 

Orosius, Paulus 178 

his Universal History trans- 
lated by Alfred 178 

Oswald 91 



216 



INDEX. 



P PAGE 

Panther, the 205 

Paradise Lost 119 

Pastoral, Gregory's 177 

Paulinus 86 

Peredur or Parcival T2 

Philosophy : among the Old Eng- 
lish 47-56 

creation 49, 50 

doctrine of fate 52 

origin of plant and animal 53 

the problem of good and evil. . . 55 

popular 163 

Phlegmund 177 

P/ic&nia5, the, an allegorical poem . . 205 

Q 

Quid a, ThrynCs (quoted) 55 

R 

Eagnar Lodbrok 11, 29 

Kowena 29 

Puin, The, a poem 173 

Pule of a Monastic Life 194 

S 
Salic law 12 

/Salomon and Saturn 166-169 

Sanskrit and EngUsh, their rela- 
tions 6-8 

Satire, a power with the Kelt 70 

Scop, The 34 

Seriousness, trait of Old English 

thought 174 

Shadow and substance 91 

Sidonius 10 

Signi and Sigmimd 25 

Sigulf, his catechism 165 

Skimen 52 

Sorli 11 

SouFs Complaint to the Body. 171, 172 

Sparrow, the parable of the 87 

Stubbs : on the possession of land 

(note) 20 

on legislation 183 

T 

Tacitus : describes the Old English 

homestead 9 

on Old English manners and 
customs 23 



PAGE 

Taliesin (520-570) 67 

Theodore of Tarsus (602-690) 131 

Penitentials of 182 

Theodelinda 81 

Thor, derivations from 7S 

Thorkehn on Beowulf. 46 

Thorpe on Beowulf 45 

Triads 65 

U 

Uni/oersal History of Orosius 178 

TTrd, well of 52 

TJrien 11 

V 
Vafthrudni 155 

Valhalla 92, 173 

Valkyriur 52 

Various Fortunes of Men, & -poevci 203 

Visigoths 11 

Vortigern 29, 62 

Vortipore 64 

W 

Wager of Battle 19 

Wanderer, The 186, 187 

"Wealthow 28 

Wearmouth 156 

Weissenhrunn Hymn, the 207 

Welsh Triads 65, 70 

Werigeld and Widrigeld 16 

Wliale, the 205 

Widsith (cir. 370) 34 

Wiglaf 15 

Wihtraed, laws of. 182 

Winchester 175, 209 

Wiseman, Cardinal, on EngUsh 

and Persian 7 

Woden, derivations from 78 

Woman : her condition 23, 29 

her occupation 28 

the Old English ideal of 26 

Balmes on 25 

Wright on bowers 28 

Wulfstan : Bishop 198 

Monk 189 

Y 

Yggdrasil 52 

Ymir 50 

York 152 

Yule-tide 94 



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